Re: Annoying build warnings from latest Apple toolchain - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

I wrote:
> Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> writes:
>> On 2023-09-28 16:46:08 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>>> Well, it's only important on platforms where we can't restrict
>>> libpq.so from exporting all symbols.  I don't know how close we are
>>> to deciding that such cases are no longer interesting to worry about.
>>> Makefile.shlib seems to know how to do it everywhere except Windows,
>>> and I imagine we know how to do it over in the MSVC scripts.

>> Hm, then I'd argue that we don't need to care about it anymore. The meson
>> build does the necessary magic on windows, as do the current msvc scripts.

> If we take that argument seriously, then I'm inclined to adjust my
> upthread patch for Makefile.global.in so that it removes the extra
> inclusions of libpgport/libpgcommon everywhere, not only macOS.
> The rationale would be that it's not worth worrying about ABI
> stability details on any straggler platforms.

Looking closer, it's only since v16 that we have export list support
on all officially-supported platforms.  Therefore, I think the prudent
thing to do in the back branches is use the patch I posted before,
to suppress the duplicate -l switches only on macOS.  In HEAD,
I propose we simplify life by doing it everywhere, as attached.

            regards, tom lane

diff --git a/src/Makefile.global.in b/src/Makefile.global.in
index 18240b5fef..7b66590801 100644
--- a/src/Makefile.global.in
+++ b/src/Makefile.global.in
@@ -589,19 +589,27 @@ endif
 libpq = -L$(libpq_builddir) -lpq

 # libpq_pgport is for use by client executables (not libraries) that use libpq.
-# We force clients to pull symbols from the non-shared libraries libpgport
-# and libpgcommon rather than pulling some libpgport symbols from libpq just
-# because libpq uses those functions too.  This makes applications less
-# dependent on changes in libpq's usage of pgport (on platforms where we
-# don't have symbol export control for libpq).  To do this we link to
-# pgport before libpq.  This does cause duplicate -lpgport's to appear
-# on client link lines, since that also appears in $(LIBS).
+# We used to use this to force libpgport and libpgcommon to be linked before
+# libpq, ensuring that clients would pull symbols from those libraries rather
+# than possibly getting them from libpq (and thereby having an unwanted
+# dependency on which symbols libpq uses).  However, now that we can prevent
+# libpq from exporting those symbols on all platforms of interest, we don't
+# worry about that anymore.  The previous technique resulted in duplicate
+# libraries in link commands, since those libraries also appear in $(LIBS).
+# Some platforms warn about that, so avoiding those warnings is now more
+# important.  Hence, $(libpq_pgport) is now equivalent to $(libpq), but we
+# still recommend using it for client executables in case some other reason
+# appears to handle them differently.
+libpq_pgport = $(libpq)
+
 # libpq_pgport_shlib is the same idea, but for use in client shared libraries.
+# We need those clients to use the shlib variants.  (Ideally, users of this
+# macro would strip libpgport and libpgcommon from $(LIBS), but no harm is
+# done if they don't, since they will have satisfied all their references
+# from these libraries.)
 ifdef PGXS
-libpq_pgport = -L$(libdir) -lpgcommon -lpgport $(libpq)
 libpq_pgport_shlib = -L$(libdir) -lpgcommon_shlib -lpgport_shlib $(libpq)
 else
-libpq_pgport = -L$(top_builddir)/src/common -lpgcommon -L$(top_builddir)/src/port -lpgport $(libpq)
 libpq_pgport_shlib = -L$(top_builddir)/src/common -lpgcommon_shlib -L$(top_builddir)/src/port -lpgport_shlib $(libpq)
 endif