Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 13:17:25 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: "John M. Aldrich" <fighteer AT cs DOT com>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Involving non statndart LIB into project ?
In-Reply-To: <32D482E1.42AB@cs.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970109131450.2825B-100000@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


On Wed, 8 Jan 1997, John M. Aldrich wrote:

> This translates into [lib]alleg[.a].  The reason this is done is to
> force all library names to be standardized.  If they were not, you could
> call your library schmo.jnk, and your friend could call his 55ck858.44c,
> and nobody would have the slightest idea what they were.  But because of
> the forced naming convention, all libraries have standard names (libc.a,
> libgcc.a, liballeg.a, libsword.a), or they can't be easily linked.

Actually, I think that the reason behind the -lxy -> libxy.a rule is the 
simplistic method of parsing command line in early Unix linkers.  So they 
invented an argument which looked like a switch but actually was a 
reference to a filename.