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.
If you only care about win32, life becomes much easier. In fact you
probably shouldn't even try to jump through libtool's hoops.
Libtool absolutely must provide the same interface to the developer
for all platforms, and it would be unfair to cater to the lowest
common denominator (windows) when every other platform we support has
much, much more functionality. That we have got it to work as well
as it does has involved much sweat and tears!
> > 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.
Well, with DJ Delories binutils mods, all of the dlltool nastiness has
gone away, so you *can* use just gcc to link a dll. Unfortunately,
this version of binutils is hard to come by, so for the moment we are
stuck with libtool and a five stage link =(O|
> At least, I think I've already convinced him of that. :-)
`Impossible' is bit too strong. I still think that it will be
possible to create shared libraries on windows which behave a bit like
elf shared libraries in the civilised world, but it will involve
*alot* of deep magic. The payback is barely worth the huge effort (it
would almost be easier to design a new binary format and loading
mechanism), and there is so much other good work to be done in other
areas of libtool that it is slipping ever lower down my todo list.
Cheers,
Gary.
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