building binutils with gcc

["james C. Georgas" <james-georgas at home dot com>]

I'm a little confused by the instructions given on the "Downloading the
source" page in the installation instructions for gcc
(gcc.gnu.org/install/download.html).

The last paragraph says to untar the binutils source into the same
directory or a separate one. So, for example:

I have untarred gcc, so the top of the source tree is "gcc-3.0.1/", and
this directory contains "gcc/", "INSTALL/", "zlib/" and so on.

First, assume I want to unpack the binutils into the same directory as
gcc:

james@Rainsong:~/software:$ cd gcc-3.0.1
james@Rainsong:~/software/gcc-3.0.1$ tar xvzf
../src/binutils-2.11.2.tar.gz

This puts the binutils tree completely inside the gcc tree, so the
directory "binutils-2.11.2/", which contains "binutils/", "gas/" and so
on is under "gcc-3.0.1/"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now assume instead, that I have unpacked the binutils source into a
separate directory.
Its top level directory is "binutils-2.11.2/", which contains "bfd/",
"binutils/", "gas/" and so on.

So I have two source trees:

gcc-3.0.1
binutils-2.11.2

In this case, I need to make symlinks from the binutils source tree to
the gcc source tree:

james@Rainsong:~/software$ cd gcc-3.0.1
james@Rainsong:~/software/gcc-3.0.1$ ln -s ../binutils-2.11.2/* .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

These two configurations produce different directory trees. In the
second case, there seems to be an issue concerning files with the same
directory path, like the "configure" script. Depending on whether I give
the -f flag to "ln" or not, I'll get the "configure" script from either
gcc or binutils. What's the deal here?

A concrete example would be great.

Regards,
    James Georgas
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