Re: -fpic vs -fPIC

[Jeffrey A Law <law at cygnus dot com>]

  In message <3720a225.77123225@mailer.gwdg.de>you write:
  > Could somebody please explain to me the different approaches gcc uses when
  > given one or the other flag ? I only found the description in gcc.info that
  > -fPIC overcomes a size limit but not how that's achieved.
Correct.  On some targets -fpic can only address a certain amount of 
position independent data in the static store.  The actual amount of
data varies from machine to machine (and in some cases between different
versions of the linker). 

  > As the info says that -fPIC isn't needed for x86, I'm always changing
  > libtoolin new packages I compile to use -fpic. But I was always unsure if
  > this is the right thing to do and would like to know the implications i
  > in order to base my doing on knowledge rather than guesswork.
Unless you know that the amount of data you're going to reference is always
small, I would recommend always using -fPIC for modules that you use to
build a shared library.

If you are going to put -fPIC compiled modules into an archive library
(and there are good reasons to do so), then you should always use -fPIC
for those modules so that when that archive library is linked into an
executable or other shared library, it won't be size limited.

Jeff