Re: getopt: ugly linker messages

[Larry Hall <cygwin-lh at cygwin dot com>]

At 11:18 AM 9/19/2003, Christopher Faylor you wrote:
>On Fri, Sep 19, 2003 at 09:49:25AM -0400, Charles Wilson wrote:
>>Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>
>>>Since that auto-import is working fine for a long while now and since
>>>this sort of auto-import is normal for any other platform... isn't there
>>>a time we can get rid of that message?
>>
>>auto-import is not the default for all pei386 versions of binutils, 
>>particularly mingw.
>>
>>And auto-import is in no way "normal".  It provides functionality that, 
>>on the surface, appears to emulate the normal behavior of other 
>>platforms -- but under the hood, it's a bizzarre beast.
>>
>>So, taking those two points into consideration, I'm not sure what the 
>>right thing to do is, without ticking somebody on some platform off. 
>>The current compromise seems to be mostly acceptable.
>>
>>Perhaps a cygwin-special (e.g. doesn't go back to binutils CVS) patch? 
>>In that case, it's a one-liner -- just change the default value of 
>>link_info.pei386_auto_import to '1' instead of '-1' in pe.em (you might 
>>also need to change the default in ldmain.c, but I don't think that's 
>>necessary.)
>
>I'm willing to do this but I have the same reservations that I think
>you're expressing above, Chuck.  Also, the auto-import of data variables
>is slower than a normal dllimport so I don't feel real comfortable about
>making this the default.
>
>I don't feel really strongly about this however, so if the consensus is
>that this should be turned on, I'll make a cygwin-specific change to
>binutils.


My $.02 is that if auto import use is something that's worth questioning 
when it occurs, then the message should be a warning and not just info.  
It would signal a valid reason to inspect what happened and try to clean 
it up.  If one is not so motivated, it can be ignored like any other 
warning and the risk assumed.

If it's less of an issue than this, then the info message just raises
questions and generates traffic on the list.  While the warning may still
do this, it would then be clear to the poster and those reading the post
that this is something that should be remedied.  So my feeling is that if
this doesn't deserve the status of a warning, the informational message
should be off by default.  I don't see the problem of data variable import
as being a major issue for the clueless either.  If it is, the message won't
clarify anything for them so we'll still see list traffic about it either 
way.

Somehow, I don't believe my single opinion on this constitutes a consensus
so I'm sorry if this is just noise.

Now back to the regularly scheduled Cygwin email traffic already in 
progress...


--
Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
838 Washington Street                   (508) 893-9889 - FAX
Holliston, MA 01746                     


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