[boost] [config] GCC symbol visibility across shared libraries

Subject: [boost] [config] GCC symbol visibility across shared libraries
From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-05-05 09:44:27

There are several outstanding tickets (2114, 2309, 3697) dealing with
GCC symbol visibility across shared libraries (DSO's on UNIX-like
systems, DLL's on Windows-like systems).

A particular problem that is affecting several Boost libraries
(system, filesystem, threads, etc) is that with compiler switch
-fvisibility=hidden an exception thrown in one library cannot be
caught in another library or in the main program.

For more background, see http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/Visibility

Ticket 2114 provided patches to fix the problem, and work started on
getting them ready for trunk. But that work seems to have stalled. See
http://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/2114

What needs to be done to restart this effort?

It would be better is discussion could occur on this list, rather than
as comments attached to the ticket. That will ensure more eyeballs
look at this.

--Beman