Running ranlib after installation - okay or not?

[Shantonu Sen]

ranlib is required on Darwin after changing the timestamp of the  
archive.

Shantonu

On Aug 31, 2005, at 11:02 AM, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:

> Gerald Pfeifer <gerald@pfeifer.com> writes:
>
>> We currently perform the following sequence of commands as part of  
>> the
>> installation (-m 444 being the default on current FreeBSD systems).
>>
>>   install -m 444 ./libgcc.a /prefix/lib/gcc/i386-portbld- 
>> freebsd5.4/3.4.5/gcc/i386-portbld-freebsd5.4/3.4.5/
>>   ranlib /prefix/lib/gcc/i386-portbld-freebsd5.4/3.4.5/gcc/i386- 
>> portbld-freebsd5.4/3.4.5/libgcc.a
>>
>> This works fine when running as root, but when doing an  
>> installation as
>> user, installation fails:
>>
>>   ranlib: unable to copy file '/prefix/lib/gcc/i386-portbld- 
>> freebsd5.4/3.4.5/gcc/i386-portbld-freebsd5.4/3.4.5/libgcc.a'  
>> reason: Permission denied
>>   gmake[2]: *** [install] Error 1
>>
>>
>> I believe installing libraries with permissions 444 ought to be okay,
>> as is for ranlib to refuse working on files which are not writeable.
>>
>> Does anyone disagree (and if not, have suggestions how to address  
>> this
>> in GCC)?
>
> ranlib is basically never required on a modern system.  It is really
> only needed if the archive is built with the S option to ar.
>
> So I think the best way to address this is to not run ranlib.
>
> Ian