>Number: 190146
>Category: docs
>Synopsis: [patch] make explicit how to install static libraries
>Confidential: no
>Severity: non-critical
>Priority: low
>Responsible: freebsd-doc
>State: open
>Quarter:
>Keywords:
>Date-Required:
>Class: doc-bug
>Submitter-Id: current-users
>Arrival-Date: Fri May 23 16:20:00 UTC 2014
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator: Natacha Porté
>Release: 9.2-RELEASE
>Organization:
>Environment:
FreeBSD yulai 9.2-RELEASE FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE #0 r255898: Thu Sep 26 22:50:31 UTC 2013 root at bake.isc.freebsd.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64
>Description:
A lot of ports are currently using $(INSTALL_LIB) macro to install static libraries (*.a files), presumably because the name hints at installing any kind of library.
However stripping breaks static libraries, since they are only an archives of object files not yet linked.
I detailed my analysis in PR ports/188993, which was the first port I encountered with the problem. I later discovered that there are a lot of them affected. I guess the problem does not manifests often, since static linking is seldom used.
Currently, the porter's handbook doesn't say anything about static libraries. The attached patch adds a specific note about them, and distinguish them from shared libraries.
>How-To-Repeat:
Run
grep -r 'INSTALL_LIB.*\.a' /usr/ports
and see the amount of matches
>Fix:
Hopefully patching the documentation will help porters install static libraries correctly in the future.
Patch attached with submission follows:
Index: en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/makefiles/chapter.xml
===================================================================
--- en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/makefiles/chapter.xml (revision 44916)
+++ en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/makefiles/chapter.xml (working copy)
@@ -4362,7 +4362,8 @@
<listitem>
<para><varname>INSTALL_LIB</varname> is a command to
- install shared libraries.</para>
+ install shared libraries (but not static
+ libraries).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
@@ -4375,7 +4376,7 @@
<listitem>
<para><varname>INSTALL_DATA</varname> is a command to
- install sharable data.</para>
+ install sharable data, including static libraries.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
@@ -4387,6 +4388,13 @@
<para>These are basically the <command>install</command>
command with all the appropriate flags.</para>
+
+ <note>
+ <para>Do not use <varname>INSTALL_LIB</varname> to install
+ static libraries (<filename>*.a</filename>), because
+ stripping them render them useless. Use
+ <varname>INSTALL_DATA</varname> instead.</para>
+ </note>
</sect2>
<sect2 xml:id="install-strip">
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: