Staging Problem

From: bill_kempf (williamkempf_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-03-01 12:48:53

I've e-mailed Rene about my concerns here before, but I've finally 
gotten around to proving the problem is real and thought it better to 
post it to the list this time.

The issue is that the staging concept, with the ability to rename 
files, simply doesn't work for DLLs on the Win32 platform. When 
import libraries are used (and this is the only DLL usage that 
Boost.Threads can support since actual dynamic linking would result 
in premature cleanup of thread local data) the import library does 
the dynamic loading of the DLL based on the name of the DLL at 
compile time. When you rename the DLL this means that the import 
library no longer can load the appropriate DLL.

Rene suggested using a utility such as IMPLIB to recreate the import 
library when staging. This might work, but I'm not sure if it's the 
right solution. I don't know if IMPLIB will work with all C++ DLLs 
generated by other compilers, nor do I know about the universal 
presence of this, or a similar utility, for the various compilers.

I'd suggest instead allowing <tag>s to be used in the build commands 
to modify the output name at compile/link time. This may be a more 
complicated solution to implement in the Jam rules, but it seems to 
be the more "proper" solution.

Bill Kempf