libstdc-v3: portability of 'ar' w/o file list?

[Robert Lipe <robertlipe at usa dot net>]

Before you run me off to another list, hear me out. :-)

On three different system that I've tried, libstdc++-v3/libio tries to
run the following commands:

/bin/sh ../libtool --mode=link /play/negcs/gcc/xgcc -B/play/negcs/gcc/ -B/usr/lo
cal/i686-pc-sco3.2v5.0.6/bin/ -B/usr/local/i686-pc-sco3.2v5.0.6/lib/ -isystem /u
sr/local/i686-pc-sco3.2v5.0.6/include -D_GNU_SOURCE -g  -g -belf  -o libio.la
  -lm
rm -fr  .libs/libio.a .libs/libio.la
ar rc .libs/libio.a
true .libs/libio.a
creating libio.la
(cd .libs && rm -f libio.la && ln -s ../libio.la libio.la)


The 'ar' command fails on all three of these System V's.  Since we've
told it that we're "a"dding files to the archive, it demands that we
actually give it a file to add.  (GNU ar in the binutils that I examined
has no such restriction and is one possible way around this.)  I could
presumably come up with some empty file to archive it or some shell
wrapper to just create the "!<arch>" header, but that all seems pretty
gross.

There has to be a better way out of here.  Any ideas?

RJL