Re: Linking a directory into several projects

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Ian,

* Ian Crowther wrote on Mon, Sep 12, 2005 at 10:46:40PM CEST:
> In a typical c project I find myself duplicating certain things.

What type of things?

> I've solved this problem for some files by creating
> symbolic links to ~/c-lib/*, where common files are saved.
> This works great; "make dist" puts the files linked to
> into an archive.
> 
> I can't, however, find a good solution to linking to a group of
> files which are likely to change in number. A good example is
> autoconf's @address@hidden I build a library in myproject/libcompat/.

Building a library is a good idea.

> If I create ~/c-lib/libcompat instead and
> "ln myproject/libcompat ~/c-lib/libcompat -s" then at build time

(consider using $(LN_S) with AC_PROG_LN_S -- see docs for how to use
it.)

> I get:
> 
> make[2]: *** No rule to make target `../configure.ac', needed by 
> `Makefile.in'.  Stop.

Cannot reproduce.  This looks like a completely unrelated error.
Please show a small example where this takes place.

> presumably because "ls .." points to "~/c-lib/" when I'm in
> "myproject/libcompat/".
> 
> I could individually link to all the files in c-lib, but then
> I need to update the links in every c project each time
> I change the list of files that makes up libcompat/libcompat.a

I don't understand this at all.

> I could link to libcompat/libcompat.a, but then if I "make dist"
> then the source to build the library is not included.

This again looks like a separate issue.  It would probably be best to
solve this one, so you have a clean solution.

> Has anybody got a good solution for this problem?

Yes: show an example setup we can reproduce; then we show you what to
change.  :)

Cheers,
Ralf