static library dependencies

Howard Chu hyc@highlandsun.com
Thu Mar 18 23:25:00 GMT 2010


When building shared libraries you can link any dependencies into the shared 
library file, and so any application can use the shared library without 
mentioning the library's dependencies on the link line. It would be nice to 
provide the same capability for static libraries, otherwise build procedures 
need to be changed drastically depending on whether a library dependency is 
static or shared.

It seems all you need to do is add a dependency list member in the ar archive, 
and extend the linker to look for this dependency list by default. It could be 
an extension of the symbol directory maintained by "ar rs" or some other option.

Comments?
-- 
   -- Howard Chu
   CTO, Symas Corp.           http://www.symas.com
   Director, Highland Sun     http://highlandsun.com/hyc/
   Chief Architect, OpenLDAP  http://www.openldap.org/project/



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