Re: Patch: java class registration via .jcr section, take 3

[Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs dot mu dot oz dot au>]

On 11-Aug-2001, Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com> wrote:
> >>>>> "Fergus" == Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au> writes:
> 
> Fergus> The approach of requiring that you link with a particular
> Fergus> program really doesn't scale to multiple languages well.  We
> Fergus> made that mistake with `ml', but please don't repeat it with
> Fergus> `gcj'.
> 
> You aren't required to link with gcj.

Good.  Please keep it that way.

> Perhaps there is a way to make it easier for everyone.  I don't know
> what it is.

There's two alternatives I can think of.

(1) Instead of having separate drivers, just have one driver
with options `--java', `--fortran', `--mercury', etc.
Then you can link multiple languages by just specifying
multiple options.  `gcj' can just be a wrapper around
`gcc --java', `g77' can be just a wrapper around `gcc --fortran', etc.

This is significantly easier to implement than
having collect handle it automagically.

(2) For each language, provide a program that prints out the
gcc options needed for that language.  E.g. this might be
doen with `gcj --print-gcc-options` or `gcj-config --print-gcc-options`.
Likewise for any libraries that need to be linked in.
Linking would then be done by invoking gcc with the output of
these programs.

	GCC_JAVA_OPTIONS = `gcj-config --print-gcc-options`
	GCC_JAVA_LIBS = `gcj-config --print-libs`
	GCC_FORTRAN_OPTIONS = `g77-config --print-gcc-options`
	GCC_FORTRAN_LIBS = `g77-config --print-libs`
	GCC = gcc 
	
	foo : $(OBJS)
		$(GCC) $(GCC_JAVA_OPTIONS) $(GCC_FORTRAN_OPTIONS) $(OBJS) \
			$(GCC_JAVA_LIBS) $(GCC_FORTRAN_LIBS)

Probably alternative (1) is better.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
The University of Melbourne         |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.