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Re: [Patch] Add --identify option to dlltool
2008/11/9 Brian Dessent <brian@dessent.net>:
> Kai Tietz wrote:
>
>> I thought about this kind of extension. But wouldn't it be better (at
>> least for COFF targets) to use the .drectve Section in object.
>
> It's not an extension. The information is already there in the import
> lib, the new flag just provides a straightforward way to dump it out.
> Why does it make any sense to add a .drectve section to objects in the
> import lib and duplicate the information in two places? And besides, it
> would mean that you'd have to rebuild every existing import lib out
> there in the wild in order for 'dlltool --identify' to work. The whole
> point of adding this flag is so that libtool can use it, and that goal
> isn't met very well if the flag only works with import libs newly
> created with bleeding edge tools and not all the existing regular import
> libs.
I agree that the -identify option is working with existing import
libraries, too. Well, my thoughts were in a more general way. To add
to each object its source dll would help even to identify all related
.dll's by an aggregated import library (which is at least possible).
But I have no objections against the the dlltool's --identify option.
>> By this
>> we could even add to the compiler a pragma to specify import library
>> dependencies.
>
> But that's orthogonal to the problem at hand. You're talking about
> being able to do the MS style trick of being able to supply linker
> options in the source code, e.g. #pragma comment(lib,"ws2_32.lib") or
> #pragma comment(linker,"/ENTRY:foobar"). This feature is about being
> able to map an import lib back to its corresponding DLL. I don't see
> how the two are related.
Right, this is orthogonal, just the way round (which is also IMHO an
to be wished feature). I think that the drectve is the more powerful
approach, but of course with the disadvantage of *prior* code.
Kai
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