[GRASS5] [emitchell@altaira.com: Re: grass autoconf]

[Andreas Lange]

Markus Neteler wrote:
> Dear Michel,
> 
> this sounds very promising. What about changing GRASS 5 to
> dynamic libraries? Are there any restrictions (beside the
> missing time, we all have)?
> 
> > I was forced to modify *all* the makefile, src/CMD/generic/make.mid
> > in addition to src/CMD/head/linux because the previous makefile sheme
> > was a little bit rigid. I wonder if it is still the case, and if one
> > can add a flag in configure option sto use dynamic libraries when
> > available.
> Michel, it would be great if you could provide these patches!
> I hope you still have your old code there to diff against
> GRASS 5.
> 
> > On system that can do that (Linux, Solaris and probably some others),
> > the benefits are evident for the binary distribution.  Of course,
> > this should be avoided for development, since you want be able to
> > run a debugger, hence use static libs.
> This should be a flag for "configure".
> 
> Kind regards
> 
>  Markus Neteler

Hi!

there are some problems with dynamic libraries. 

If GRASS will be split into several subpackages, it will be complicated
to track all dependencies. You will have to do some
scripting/programming to get the right libraries with the packages. 

If the libraries are stored in a private directory or in a non-standard
directory, the path must be added to the loader configuration or
exported via 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH'. 

I can not say if there will be problems on other platforms than Linux,
but on my SGI IRIX machine there are some problems with gcc and the IRIX
linker (reported by others on the list too). Can not promise if i can
dig into this.

I would vote for a step-by-step approach. If the autoconf system works,
we could discuss again if it is worth the effort. 

For programming i think that dynamic libraries are only really useful if
documentation for the functions exists. 


The autoconf / configure setup would be a big advance, i will report my
problems (due to problems of the GISGEN/gmake procedure) compiling beta7
on IRIX later. 

cu 

Andreas
-- 
Andreas Lange, 65187 Wiesbaden, Germany, Tel. +49 611 807850
Andreas.Lange at Rhein-Main.de, A.C.Lange at GMX.net

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