Re: [Mingw-users] library name

[Julien L. <ju...@fa...>]

On 23/03/2006 15:38, Keith MARSHALL wrote:
> Earnie Boyd wrote, quoting Julien Lecomte:
>>> The only caveat I found is that the specs file needs to be reviewed 
>>> if using `gcc -Wl,-dn' or `gcc -Wl,-dy' (ie, linking only to 
>>> static/shared libraries)
>>> The fix is simple: change every occurence of -lfoo to -lfoo.dll if 
>>> the library had been renamed (eg: libkernel.a to libkernel.dll.a)
>> The system libraries are always a .dll; one can use ``nm'' to discover 
>> if the library is an import library or static library without too much 
>> effort.  The .dll.a extention was added at a later date than the start 
>> of MinGW and we've just not taken an initiative to change the name of 
>> the libraries. 

>> Changing the name of the libraries would also mean that 
>> we would need to remove existing libraries with the old name when 
>> someone performs an upgrade. 

I don't think their is a *need* to remove the existing libraries but it 
would be *highly* *recommeded*.

>> That isn't really accomplished easily 
>> with a tarball so we have decided to leave the name the with just a .a 
>> extension.
> 
> Something of a cop-out, perhaps, for surely it should be possible to
> automate the entire process with a script -- would you care to provide
> and maintain one, Julien?

Why a script ? Shouldn't it all be done in the makefiles ?
Just by modifying the configure script, we can add an option such as 
--with-new-naming (or --with-libtool-naming) that would take care of 
building and installing of whichever the user wants.
This is also perfect to address the following issues:
- keeping legacy
- not using libtool
- not using automake (I'm taking in account Keith's POV on automake)

Julien