[news.eclipse.tools.cdt] Re: Linker cannot find lib file

[jan_m@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jan Millar)]

Hi Jonah,

Thank you for your very useful replies. You mustn't take my comments 
personally (please dont take these personally either). 

My observation that it was "an odd way to do things" was a mild way of 
implying that there is a slightly better way of doing things that doesn't 
require a PhD in the tool used.

Any tool responding:

cannot find -l/home/fred/workspace/CgiGetD/libmysqlclient.a

when that pathname exists and is readable, clearly "could do better".

Having in the past developed tools that did something similar I found the 
most intuitive approach (i.e. the one that worked best for the 
"non-expert") is to apply the following logic:

1) Did the user supply a known suffix - if so use it verbatim.

2) Did the user (appear to) supply a known prefix - if so (try to) use it 
verbatim.

3) Try known suffixes.

4) Try the default prefix.

5) Check in each case that the file has the appropriate attributes, e.g. 
contains the expected content.

6) If a non-verbatim filename is used, announce the filename actually used 
in case the user made a mistake and something matched coincidentally.


It's a good rule generally, whether you are a computer program or a human, 
to:

1) Check your assumptions.
2) Try doing exactly what you have been told in case that is what is 
required.

Again many thanks for your useful and informative replies.

Regards,

Jan