Re: RFA: x86 backend: Add default-manifest to Cygwin/MinGW links

[Nicholas Clifton <nickc at redhat dot com>]

Hi Kai,

> >    The default manifest file contains a resource section (.rsrc) holding
> >    information necessary for the binary to be run under Windows 8.  It is
> >    placed last on the linker command line so that a user provided
> >    manifest, if there is one, will take precedence over the default
> >    manifest.

> Well, I am a bit concerned about the position of the manifest-object.
> What will actually happen, if user specifies an user-specific
> manifest-object.  Will the default one, if present, be ignored, or
> will it be still linked?

The default one, if present, will be ignored[1].

This is why I am using ENDFILE_SPEC to add the default manifest to the 
linker command line.  This ensures that the default manifest is placed 
after any user specified object files on the linker command line.  The 
resource merging code in the linker is specifically designed to drop any 
duplicate resources, only keeping the resource that appeared first on 
the command line.

Cheers
  Nick

[1] Strictly speaking the default manifest will not be ignored.  It will 
be included in the link, and merged into the output .rsrc section.  But 
the resource merging code in the linker will drop everything in the 
default manifest giving preference to the user supplied manifest instead.