Re: partial linking

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Bob Friesenhahn wrote on Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 07:03:35PM CET:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Ralf Wildenhues wrote:
> 
> >>Am I right, that there is no way to pass additional linker flags when
> >>doing partial linking?
> >
> >Yes, as of now.  Consider it a bug.
> 
> Is partial linking a documented libtool feature?  If not, how can 
> failure to support partial linking be considered a bug?

Well, it is (as was already reported).

> Unless libtool can portably support a feature, or there at least can 
> be a fallback to producing software that runs, then it should not be 
> supported as a libtool feature.

Well, to be honest, I don't know too much about how portable that is.
And in any case, it's a Libtool documentation bug to only mention
partial linking in 3 lines and be done with it -- no limitations, no
explanation of what it does.  At least we should warn against it if
it is not usable or portable.

I investigated a little bit:

- every system I checked which has shared objects also has `ld -r'
  (but exact semantics may vary), even static-only systems have it.
- it's not portable to do for neither PIC nor non-PIC objects.
- C++ might be a problem.

More info appreciated.  As I see it, we should probably just warn
against it and recommend convenience libraries.

Regards,
Ralf