Re: [Boost.Build V2] Couple of newbie questions.

From: klapshin <klapshin_at_[hidden] (klapshin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-03-04 12:26:03

--- In jamboost_at_[hidden], Vladimir Prus <ghost_at_c...> wrote:
> 1. It reasonable desire to combine libraries in other libraries
> 2. When dynamic library is created, it's OK.
> 3. When static library is created, this does not work. For that
> reason, when creating static library we should convert library 
sources
> into usage requirements.
> 
> Uhm. the automatic moving of sources into usage requirement should 
be
> possible without too much effort. But is it really better? For 
linking targets
> inside Boost.Build it makes no different. If you want to use the 
generated
> library outside Boost.Build, you either have to make it dynamic, 
or tell
> the users to link all other libraries it depends upon. (Or course, 
in current
> design, you'd have to link all the other libraries even if library 
is 
> dynamic).

Ok, lets put it this way: the dynamic libraries are default and more 
common use case, correct? So they have to be built efficiently. At 
the same time it would be nice to have an ability to link libraries 
statically.

In dynamic case linking to "a" and "other_lib" while it is 
sufficient to link to "a" only does not look right. Now the real 
question is how smart linker is? If it is capable of removing extra 
libs easily, then fine. Otherwise you can get really terrible 
linking times in a projects consisting of numerous libraries. It 
might be a step to N*N link time instead of N*lg(N) for well 
designed system (e.g. with dependency graph close to a binary tree).

If link time is not affected, then there is no need to worry, and we 
can get away with all the exrta linkage, and not to worry about 
differences between static and dynamic libs.