[Dev-C++] Inter-library depenencies

[Robert L. <rl...@gd...>]

Hi,
After some searching I found this on the GNU Libtool website.

http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html#Inter-library%20dependen
cies

It seems I can't link in my GUI static library to my application because
it is dependent on the openGL and GLut libraries.
Dev-C++ does not allow linking of static libraries that depend on other
libraries.
I guess I can download the libtool, untar it, and use it in my makefile.
Seems like a pain though.
Does anyone know how to link in a library in Dev-C++ with inter-library
dependencies ?

Thanks,
Bobby



------------------------------------------------------------
Inter-library dependencies
By definition, every shared library system provides a way for
executables to depend on libraries, so that symbol resolution is
deferred until runtime. 

An inter-library dependency is one in which a library depends on other
libraries. For example, if the libtool library libhello uses the cos
function, then it has an inter-library dependency on libm, the math
library that implements cos. 

Some shared library systems provide this feature in an
internally-consistent way: these systems allow chains of dependencies of
potentially infinite length. 

However, most shared library systems are restricted in that they only
allow a single level of dependencies. In these systems, programs may
depend on shared libraries, but shared libraries may not depend on other
shared libraries. 

In any event, libtool provides a simple mechanism for you to declare
inter-library dependencies: for every library libname that your own
library depends on, simply add a corresponding -lname option to the link
line when you create your library. To make an example of our libhello
that depends on libm: 

burger$ libtool gcc -g -O -o libhello.la foo.lo hello.lo \
                -rpath /usr/local/lib -lm
burger$

When you link a program against libhello, you don't need to specify the
same -l options again: libtool will do that for you, in order to
guarantee that all the required libraries are found. This restriction is
only necessary to preserve compatibility with static library systems and
simple dynamic library systems. 

Some platforms, such as AIX, do not even allow you this flexibility. In
order to build a shared library, it must be entirely self-contained
(that is, have references only to symbols that are found in the .lo
files or the specified -l libraries), and you need to specify the
-no-undefined flag. By default, libtool builds only static libraries on
these kinds of platforms. 

The simple-minded inter-library dependency tracking code of libtool
releases prior to 1.2 was disabled because it was not clear when it was
possible to link one library with another, and complex failures would
occur. A more complex implementation of this concept was re-introduced
before release 1.3, but it has not been ported to all platforms that
libtool supports. The default, conservative behavior is to avoid linking
one library with another, introducing their inter-dependencies only when
a program is linked with them.