Re: fixing the c++/f77 circular dependency

[Joe Buck <jbuck@synopsys.com>]

I wrote:

> | During the build process, don't build a library named libgcc.a.  Instead,
> | build libgcc-c.a, libgcc-c++.a, libgcc-f.a (Fortran), etc.  At
> | installation time or just before, combine all of these libraries into one,
> | named libgcc.a.  The LANGUAGES variable determines which language-specific
> | libraries are combined to make libgcc.a.  Normally, gcc passes -lgcc to
> | the linker, but a flag can disable this, so that the compiler can be
> | bootstrapped with -lgcc-c instead.  We do want to wind up with a combined
> | libgcc.a so that multi-language programs work.

meissner@cygnus.com writes:

> No, installation time is too late.  I routinely test compilers in place
> without installing them (using ./xgcc -B./).

OK, it doesn't have to be installation time; each build can use LANGUAGES
to make libgcc.a, but the bootstrap process would not use this libgcc.a
to build the compiler with itself, it would only use libgcc-c.a.

I don't know enough about MULTILIB issues to comment there.  Maybe all
that is really needed is a temporary C-only library that is used in the
bootstrapping process and my solution is overkill.  But recent 2.8.0
snapshots have resulted in bogus libgcc.a files (that mysteriously fix
themselves if libgcc.a and constituent .o files are zapped and rebuilt)
so we need something simple and reliable.