Re: [avr-libc-dev] avr-gcc, libgcc.a and libgcov.a

[Chris Marrin]

On May 4, 2011, at 7:57 PM, Weddington, Eric wrote:

> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Chris Marrin [mailto:address@hidden
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 7:21 PM
>> To: Weddington, Eric
>> Cc: address@hidden
>> Subject: Re: [avr-libc-dev] avr-gcc, libgcc.a and libgcov.a
>> 
>> 
>> Yes, it is very helpful. One other question is what is the purpose of
>> libiberty.a? It's in the path lib/ which seems very odd if it's an AVR
>> specific library. Is it just there to allow building the tools? Can I
>> ignore it?
> 
> Libiberty is a library that comes with GCC (though it can be it's own 
> separate library) that has common functionality across multiple platforms, 
> including various Linux flavors and Windows. It's known as a "compatability" 
> library. It's mainly used in building GCC itself for whatever host is 
> specified.
> 
> The reason for the weird name has to do with library names and what GCC 
> searches for. GCC uses the -l switch to specify the name of the library to 
> link in. However the library name must be in the form of "lib<name>.a". So, 
> for example, on the linking command line you will see "-lc" given to GCC. 
> This means that GCC will search for the filename "libc.a", which happens to 
> usually be the Standard C library for the target compiled for. Well since the 
> filename of the library is "libiberty.a", this means that the linker switch 
> to find the file must be: -liberty, i.e. 'freedom' from the host system's 
> idiosyncrasies. Get it? ;-)

Yes, programmers in the early days sure were "funny" :-)

I have found that it's actually binutils that installs it. Since it is an i386 
library I won't worry about adding it to the install.

Thanks

-----
~Chris
address@hidden