Hi Jack, * Jack Kelly wrote on Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 09:33:58AM CEST: > On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 4:17 PM, Ralf Wildenhues wrote: > > * Jack Kelly wrote on Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 06:13:58AM CEST: > >> Perhaps there should be support for a foo_jar_JARADD, that by analogy > >> to _LDADD, that specifies additional files to be included in the jar? > > > > Why would it have to be a new primary, instead of just reusing _LDADD? > > Because, IMO, it's conceptually different. The output's being > assembled with `jar', not `ld'.
This argument is attached at the wrong reply of mine, and the rationale is not conclusive: if the concept of a jar output file were different from a library output file, then that would be an argument in favor of using _JARS rather than _LIBRARIES, but not one for using _JARADD rather than _LDADD. Also, I'm with John, in that *conceptually*, creating a jar is virtually the same as creating a library. It's that currently, compiler tools don't do a good job of hiding this concept behind a consistent implementation, but instead expose the internal details of the language. Much like what prompted libtool (way back when) to treat C and C++ libraries differently (which it unfortunately still does and has to). _JARS has some merits when its arguments are @substed@, but with <foo>_LDADD, automake knows exactly that it is working on a library or a jar by virtue of looking at <foo>. Cheers, Ralf
