Hello Gary,
Gary V. Vaughan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
GVV> On Wed, Mar 29, 2000 at 09:59:07AM -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>> On Mar 29, 2000, Paul Sokolovsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > What I'd like to do now is try to make up-to-seamless
>> > support for win32 dlls.
GVV> If you only care about win32, life becomes much easier. In fact you
GVV> probably shouldn't even try to jump through libtool's hoops.
No, no of course I care about seamless support on any platform,
*including win32*. I'm quite happy build dlls in ad hoc manner, but I
really got an idea that I want grab libtoolized library for *nix and
build it automagically for win32 ;-)
GVV> Libtool absolutely must provide the same interface to the developer
GVV> for all platforms, and it would be unfair to cater to the lowest
GVV> common denominator (windows) when every other platform we support has
GVV> much, much more functionality. That we have got it to work as well
GVV> as it does has involved much sweat and tears!
Yes, the same interface is a presupposition. But why you think
that it's impossible with windows? Well, why you think windows is
least common denominator? I'll try to challenge such view in reply to
your original mail.
>> > I'm glad to know that there's no problem
>> > with using gcc to link on *that platform*.
>> I'm sure Gary will tell you how impossible that is to achieve, because
>> of the brain-damaged way in which DLLs were designed on MS-Windows.
GVV> Well, with DJ Delories binutils mods, all of the dlltool nastiness has
GVV> gone away, so you *can* use just gcc to link a dll.
Unfortunately, support made by DJ is underfunctional, and can be
used only in special cases (namely, when building dlls is explicitly
supported by package, but as you understand, I care about building
dlls even when they're not supported ;-) )
GVV> Unfortunately,
GVV> this version of binutils is hard to come by, so for the moment we are
GVV> stuck with libtool and a five stage link =(O|
Not quite true. While cygwin is of course fashion provider in
gnu-win32 world, thanks god, it's not the only gnu-win32 target.
Mingw32 now has aforementioned gcc -shared support. And as I told, it
currently far from being ruling.
>> At least, I think I've already convinced him of that. :-)
GVV> `Impossible' is bit too strong. I still think that it will be
GVV> possible to create shared libraries on windows which behave a bit like
GVV> elf shared libraries in the civilised world, but it will involve
GVV> *alot* of deep magic. The payback is barely worth the huge effort (it
GVV> would almost be easier to design a new binary format and loading
GVV> mechanism), and there is so much other good work to be done in other
GVV> areas of libtool that it is slipping ever lower down my todo list.
I greatly agree with you. It would be much easier just port ld.so
from Linux and forget all the gore. BUT - that will mean
incompatibility with native applications, what is not acceptable. So,
I'd prefer to put deep magic in libtool to support dlls. And yes,
there will be needed alot of such magic, but imho little less than
currently in ;-) .
GVV> Cheers,
GVV> Gary.
--
Paul Sokolovsky, IT Specialist
http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=11135
