Re: ar(1) issue building coreutils on 64-bit AIX

[Jim Meyering]

"Daniel Richard G." <address@hidden> wrote:
> I am building coreutils-6.9 on a 64-bit AIX 5.3 system.
>
> The system ar(1) command, in its default behavior, only accepts 32-bit
> objects. In order to accept 64-bit objects, a switch has to be given. So in
> my standard build environment, I set
>
>       AR_FLAGS="-X64 cru"
>
> This takes care of the bulk of Libtool-based packages out there. However,
> in building coreutils, I encountered this:

coreutils doesn't use libtool, but it does use automake.
And automake uses the "ARFLAGS" spelling.

...
> I noticed that lib/Makefile uses ARFLAGS instead of AR_FLAGS. I set this in
> the environment, reconfigured, and built again. Same error.
>
> Edited the variable manually in the makefile. The build succeeds.
>
> I think that the variable in question should be picked up from the
> environment, for cases like this one (editing makefiles is cumbersome,
> especially in a semi-automated build system as I have here). I would also
> suggest renaming it to AR_FLAGS, for consistency with Libtool convention.

No need to edit Makefiles.
Just invoke make with your ARFLAGS setting on the command line:

  make ARFLAGS="-X64 cru"