Feedback on ld circular reference resolution code?

[ian@cygnus.com (Ian Lance Taylor)]

   Date: Thu, 28 Apr 94 11:07:26 PDT
   From: Ted Lemon <mellon@ncd.com>

   I sent in a patch a few weeks ago which adds an option to ld which
   allows a library to be searched more than once, so that when object
   modules in two libraries refer to each other, those references can be
   correctly resolved.

Well, firstly, I haven't really had time to look at it.

Secondly, though, I don't really understand why it is needed.  My
first inclination when seeing a new feature is to say ``no.''  The GNU
stuff is already, IMHO, much too large and complex.  Adding features
makes it worse.  It seems to me that you can just write the library
name twice on the link line and get the same effect.  Why is it worth
adding such an option to the linker?  How many people will ever
actually use a feature which is not necessary and is only available in
the GNU linker?  When discussing a new feature, I don't think it's
enough to say ``here it is;'' it has to be a major lack to not have
it.

Despite these arguments, the FSF requires a new linker feature for
Hurd support which is somewhat similar to yours.  They need to have
some way to search a set of libraries as though they were a single
library.  It seems to me that that would solve your problem as well.
If you have good patches for that, I would certainly put them in.  In
fact, since this feature must get implemented, it seems to make your
proposed patch even less necessary.

Ian