Re: support for SunPRO C/C++ on Linux

[Bruno Haible]

Hello Ralf,

> Some notes:
> > *** 3353,3358 ****
> > --- 3353,3379 ----
> >     # dependencies.
> >     output_verbose_link_cmd='templist=`$CC -shared $CFLAGS -v
> > conftest.$objext 2>&1 | grep "ld"`; templist=`echo $templist | $SED
> > "s/\(^.*ld.*\)\( .*ld .*$\)/\1/"`; list=""; for z in $templist; do case
> > $z in conftest.$objext) list="$list $z";; *.$objext);; *) list="$list
> > $z";;esac; done; echo $list' ;;
> > +       *)
> > +   if LC_ALL=C $CC -V 2>&1 | sed 1q | grep "Sun C" > /dev/null; then
>
> If that LC_ALL=C was really necessary, then that is a bug.

It may not be necessary within the context of a configure script. I put it
there because I tested the English output only, not the Japanese or Chinese
or Thai one... Had forgotten that autoconf already disables i18n.

> Any reason not to simplify this to something like this?
>         case `$CC -V 2>&1 >/dev/null` in
>         *Sun\ C*)

Yes. HP-UX /bin/sh is known to dump core in

          case `command that produces more than 1 KB of output` in

and I don't know how much output other compilers generate when given the -V
option.

> > +         _LT_AC_TAGVAR(whole_archive_flag_spec,
> > $1)='${wl}--whole-archive`new_convenience=; for conv in
> > +$convenience\"\"; do test -z \"$conv\" ||
> > new_convenience=\"$new_convenience,$conv\"; done; $echo
> > \"$new_convenience\"`+${wl}--no-whole-archive'
>
> Are you sure the compiler driver won't reorder arguments here?

I used this backquoted glue-with-commas construct precisely because the
compiler driver did reorder the arguments. Earlier I used

    ${wl}--whole-archive$convenience ${wl}--no-whole-archive

which had the effect of passing to the compiler driver flags like

    -Wl,--whole-archive .libs/libfoo.a .libs/libbar.a -Wl,--no-whole-archive

and the compiler driver passed these options to the linker:

    --whole-archive --no-whole-archive .... .libs/libfoo.a .libs/libbar.a

The patch I submitted now passes to the compiler driver flags

    -Wl,--whole-archive,.libs/libfoo.a,.libs/libbar.a -Wl,--no-whole-archive

and the linker gets these options:

    --whole-archive .libs/libfoo.a .libs/libbar.a --no-whole-archive

So in general this should make --whole-archive actually work.

The only drawback of this approach is if no other object file is used, i.e.
the whole contents to be linked is inside --whole-archive, the compiler driver
refuses to do the link because it complains about no object files to link.
I don't know if it is a real use-case of libtool; if so, probably a fix could
be to add $convenience at the end of whole_archive_flag_spec, so that the
compiler sees the libraries too. (The linker would then see them twice, the
first time with --whole-archive, the second time without. That should be ok,
I hope?)

> only the CVS HEAD
> Libtool testsuite exposes the known failures fully.

Do you have two test cases, one for a whole library plus some other objects,
and one for two libraries and no other objects?

> Related question:
> are you volunteering for the forward-port of the patch?  (If not, I can
> do it, but it'll take longer then.)

No. Generally I submit patches relative to the latest release. Everything
beyond that is IMO the maintainer's job. (I hope that this attitude will
convince some people to make releases more frequently ;-)).

> Do you happen to know whether Sun changed their minds and offered this
> compiler suite for free (as in beer) now?  So that I could integrate it
> into testing..

Yes, it is available for download at
   http://developers.sun.com/prodtech/cc/downloads/tech_preview.jsp
and they distributed copies of it at LinuxTag a week ago. But I have no idea
whether the compilers will stay zero-cost when they are out of beta.

Bruno