Cannot make ftp; is this a bug?

[ITO Tsuyoshi]

Hello,

When I tried to make GNU ftp on Solaris 2.6 (on Sun architecture) with
gcc 2.95.1, I got the linker error:

> gcc -g -O2 -o ftp cmds.o cmdtab.o domacro.o ftp.o main.o ruserpass.o
> -L../libinetutils -linetutils -L../glob -lglob -lncurses -lz
> -lreadline -lresolv -lsocket -lnsl
> Undefined                     first referenced
>  symbol                           in file
> tgetnum                             /usr/local/lib/libreadline.a(terminal.o)
> tgetstr                             /usr/local/lib/libreadline.a(terminal.o)
> tgoto                               /usr/local/lib/libreadline.a(display.o)
> tputs                               /usr/local/lib/libreadline.a(display.o)
> tgetent                             /usr/local/lib/libreadline.a(terminal.o)
> tgetflag                            /usr/local/lib/libreadline.a(terminal.o)
> ld: fatal: Symbol referencing errors. No output written to ftp
> collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

I consulted the documentation of GCC and found that it makes
difference where to put ``-l'' options in the GCC command line.  That
is, ftp/Makefile (made by autoconf) says:

> ftp: $(ftp_OBJECTS) $(ftp_DEPENDENCIES)
>       @rm -f ftp
>       $(LINK) $(ftp_LDFLAGS) $(ftp_OBJECTS) $(ftp_LDADD) $(LIBS)

but ``$(ftp_LDADD)'' (which contains ``-lncurses'') should be placed
after ``$(LIBS)'' (which contains ``-lreadline'') so that the linker
searches symbols such as tputs and tgetent in libncurses.a.

I modified ftp/Makefile and ftp is made successfully, but I think it
is usually a bad thing to edit autoconf-generated Makefile.  I cannot
believe if everyone does the same modification to ftp/Makefile to make
ftp.  What is the right way to get rid of the linker error?

Thanks in advance.

ITO Tsuyoshi  <address@hidden>