Thread: Libtool?
Various recent and not so recent problem reports got me thinking again that it might be worth switching our shared library build system to libtool. Among those are: - Guesswork about which spellings of -rpath, -export-dynamic, -fpic etc. work on a particular platform or compiler. - Lack of information about which libraries libpq depends on. - Makefile.shlib can only build one library per directory. - pgxs is pretty ugly and inflexible because of the above. - Static libraries built with -fpic, which is sometimes considered a bug. - Misbehavior with rpaths pointing the wrong way during the regression tests and similar problems could maybe be tackled. Considering that pretty much everyone uses libtool these days, I'm not too worried about portability. (And before anyone asks: No, libtool does not require automake.) I think it may be worth trying out. Comments? -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Peter Eisentraut wrote: > Various recent and not so recent problem reports got me thinking again > that it might be worth switching our shared library build system to > libtool. Among those are: > > - Guesswork about which spellings of -rpath, -export-dynamic, -fpic etc. > work on a particular platform or compiler. > > - Lack of information about which libraries libpq depends on. > > - Makefile.shlib can only build one library per directory. > > - pgxs is pretty ugly and inflexible because of the above. > > - Static libraries built with -fpic, which is sometimes considered a > bug. > > - Misbehavior with rpaths pointing the wrong way during the regression > tests and similar problems could maybe be tackled. > > Considering that pretty much everyone uses libtool these days, I'm not > too worried about portability. > > (And before anyone asks: No, libtool does not require automake.) > > I think it may be worth trying out. Comments? Does it work with Windows, or with that be a 'special case'? ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
In <20050107215941.O63822@ganymede.hub.org>, on 01/07/05 at 10:00 PM, "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@postgresql.org> said: >On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Peter Eisentraut wrote: >> Various recent and not so recent problem reports got me thinking again >> that it might be worth switching our shared library build system to >> libtool. Among those are: >> >> - Guesswork about which spellings of -rpath, -export-dynamic, -fpic etc. >> work on a particular platform or compiler. >> >> - Lack of information about which libraries libpq depends on. >> >> - Makefile.shlib can only build one library per directory. >> >> - pgxs is pretty ugly and inflexible because of the above. >> >> - Static libraries built with -fpic, which is sometimes considered a >> bug. >> >> - Misbehavior with rpaths pointing the wrong way during the regression >> tests and similar problems could maybe be tackled. >> >> Considering that pretty much everyone uses libtool these days, I'm not >> too worried about portability. >> >> (And before anyone asks: No, libtool does not require automake.) >> >> I think it may be worth trying out. Comments? >Does it work with Windows, or with that be a 'special case'? It is supposed to... Mind you, it is supposed to support OS/2 as well and I have had problems with several projects that use it. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- lsunley@mb.sympatico.ca -----------------------------------------------------------
lsunley@mb.sympatico.ca wrote: >>> >>>Considering that pretty much everyone uses libtool these days, I'm not >>>too worried about portability. >>> >>>(And before anyone asks: No, libtool does not require automake.) >>> >>>I think it may be worth trying out. Comments? >>> >>> > > > >>Does it work with Windows, or with that be a 'special case'? >> >> > >It is supposed to... > >Mind you, it is supposed to support OS/2 as well and I have had problems >with several projects that use it. > > libtool is actually in the MSys DTK, so it should work for the Windows builds. I'd be more worried about some of the less common *nix systems that we try to support. The only way to know is to suck it and see. Take a snapshot, libtoolize it, and ask people to test the result. cheers andrew