Hi,
In a C environment '-lfoo' will have the linker look for files named 'libfoo.a', 'libfoo.dll.a', 'foo.dll.a', 'libfoo.dll' and 'foo.dll'. And it will then link to the first one it finds. (Not sure of the search order ... but I think it's as I've written it.)

However, in a (MinGW-built) Perl environment (eg if I run 'perl Makefile.PL LIBS="-L. -lfoo') the linker looks only for 'foo.a' and 'libfoo.a'.

Consequently, we sometimes find a need to rename external libraries (most commonly from *.dll.a to *.a), or to create copies with the .a extension. This can be somewhat tedious.

How might one make the '-l' switch (when used in the perl environment) look for the '.dll.a' and '.dll' extensions, as well as '.a' ?

Would it be a good idea for such a change to become a standard part of perl ?

Given that all-but-ancient versions of MinGW are quite capable of linking to MSVC-built '.lib' files, I would like to see '.lib' added to the list as well. (Perhaps that's going too far.)

OTOH, the MSVC compiler is quite capable of linking to '.a' and '.dll.a' libraries (but not directly to dll's). So maybe MSVC-built perls should be searching for '.a' and '.dll.a' libraries, as well as '.lib' ?

My main interest is in getting an answer to the first question that I asked - but I'm also interested in comments on the other points/questions raised.

Cheers,
Rob

In reply to [Win32] The '-l' switch, and for which files the linker looks. by syphilis

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