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Re: Plugin API Comments (was Re: GCC Plug-in Framework ready to port)
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009, Sean Callanan wrote:
> - Modify the GCC link process to use libltdl and libtool -export-dynamic
Although this may make theoretical sense in terms of the work for a
cross-platform implementation already being done, I doubt it's a good idea
in practice if you want plugin-enabled GCC to be widely buildable and the
binaries not to be very closely tied to the exact system on which they
were built. (For example, for a while it was impossible to build current
versions of guile on systems with current versions of libtool installed
because of incompatible changes to libltdl, and I don't have much
confidence in future compatibility of libltdl, or of it working reliably
with GCC unless GCC always builds its own GCC-specific copy and links
against it using -Wl,-rpath,(something involving $ORIGIN). I also don't
see support for $ORIGIN in libtool, but toolchain relocatability means
that absolute RPATH settings must not be used when linking GCC.)
I'd suggest we simply put the host-dependent code in GCC, appropriately
conditional, add code for more hosts as and when people wish to support
them with plugins, and make sure that plugin-disabled builds continue to
work for all hosts. There will undoubtedly be GCC-specific build system
changes needed for such things as building almost everything into a DLL
for Windows systems so that plugins on Windows can access symbols from
GCC (I understand from the previous discussions that this will be
necessary) and I doubt libtool would make such changes any easier.
--
Joseph S. Myers
joseph@codesourcery.com