SVN compile error

[Derek Atkins]

Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb at becket.net> writes:

> Programs like gnucash have been relying on this behavior in cases
> where P *does* use the API of Q.  You are correct that if you don't
> declare that P uses the API of Q, then there is no simple way to
> automatically figure out when P actually needs Q and when it doesn't.

Well, it depends on this for internal libraries..

> But how about this instead: just have P actually declare which
> libraries it uses and link against them?  After all, nobody else but P
> has the facts necessary to do that.
>
> I would be happy to help do this if nobody else in gnucash land wants
> to, but the current build system is so arcane that I can't figure it
> out on my own, so I would need help.  (I understand that this has been
> a problem for some time, and that the current crop of developers are
> not really responsible for the build system's arcanity.)

It would definitely help if you could..  We did a first pass
for windows but clearly missed some (or the internal dependencies
have changed over time).   As far as I know, none of the core
devs use Debian or Ubuntu, so none of us can track this down as
easily as someone who IS on Debian.

As for the arcanity, well...  All that's necessary here is to
figure out which gnucash library contains a particular API
and then add that library to the appropriate Makefile.am
LDADD or LIBADD as appropriate.   I'd be happy to help you
on IRC (if I'm awake) if you need the help.

> This is a serious problem in any system in which P, L, and Q are
> packaged separately.  Debian has been confronted with cases where
> hundreds of packages contained spurious dependencies on packages,
> which all then require coordinated recompilation against the new
> version of Q, all completely unnecessarily, and costing weeks and
> weeks of work.  

Yea, but when P, L, and Q are all part of the same package this
particular libtool behavior is just annoying...

> Thomas

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available