Jlibtool is a replacement for GNU Libtool. As it is a C program rather than a shell script, it is significantly faster than libtool. This speed difference is most noticable on large projects.
Jlibtool was originally taken from the Apache Software Foundation, at:
http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/apr/apr/trunk/build/jlibtool.c
it was then modified to fix a number of incompatibilities with GNU Libtool. It has been used to build large projects (100's of C files, loadable modules, cross-platform).
There is no configure script. None is needed. There is no
Makefile. None is needed. Jlibtool is written using functions that
are available on all modern operating systems. If your operating
system can't build jlibtool, please submit a patch.
Just use make, which is smart enough to figure out how to build C
programs:
$ make
If you don't have make, use the following command:
$ cc jlibtool.c -o jlibtool
If you do not have a working C compiler, you do not need jlibtool.
It should build without errors on all Posix operating systems. It will likely also build on Windows, though that has not been tried. If there are build errors on Windows, the fixes are likely to be small. Please submit patches, and they will be integrated into the next version.
The source contains compile-time checks for OS/2, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, SUN, MingW, and some more esoteric systems. We believe that these checks are reasonable, and up to date. If not, please submit patches.
Edit your build system (usually a Makefile), and replace references to "libtool" with "jlibtool". Some projects will "just work".
For compatibility, jlibtool still accepts the standard libtool options
such as --mode=compile. But jlibtool is smarter than libtool.
Let's see why, using an example. The following line is typical of how
libtool is used:
$ libtool --mode=compile $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c foo.c -o foo.lo
Stare at that for a second. Now look at the XKCD comic:
Panel 1: Situation: There are 14 competing standards.
Panel 2: Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard
that covers everyone's use cases!
Panel 3: Situation: There are 15 competing standards.
The "helpful" nature of libtool means that you need to learn new commands and new command-line options. These options force you to tell libtool things it already knows. e.g. when running "CC", you are really trying to compile a program.
There is a better way. For simple projects, just do this:
$ jlibtool -c foo.c -o foo.lo
Jlibtool looks at the input files, the output files, and determines what to do. Most of the time this decision can be made automatically. In those situations, jlibtool makes your life much simpler.
Where you need to pass additional options, you can use them, too:
$ jlibtool $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c foo.c -o foo.lo
Or for people who like punishment:
$ libtool --mode=compile $(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c foo.c -o foo.lo
See the HOWTO.md file in this directory for more complete documentation.
The sad thing is that jlibtool is not a "drop in" replacement for libtool. Libtool has many features, and has been under development for many years. Libtool is intended to solve portability problems for dozens of esoteric operating systems and compilers, many of which no longer have net access. The result is that users of libtool are being punished with slow build times for the mistakes that other people made decades ago.
Jlibtool is intended to solve the "last mile" of portability problems. That is, for the common case of modern operating systems, it hides the minor platform-specific details that cause aggravation.
When you want your program to build on multiple systems with minimal fuss, use jlibtool. When you want your program to build on systems that have been running for two decades, use libtool.
Since jlibtool is a compiled program, it is enormously faster than libtool. Using it in a large project can substantially reduce build times.
Don't install it. Ever.
Installing build tools is a bad idea.
Jlibtool is small enough (~60K) that it can be included in the distribution archive of your software. Doing so has the added benefit that you know the functionality of jlibtool, and that you know it works.
Many cross-platform build problems with large projects have been traced to using an installed version of build tools (libtool, libltdl, etc.), instead of using a version shipped with the project. The solution to these problems is to always use local build tools, and to never install those build tools.
Jlibtool is a tool to help build your project on a variety of platforms. It is not a tool to help other people on those platforms build their projects. Let them be. They use their own tools, and they know what they're doing.
Jlibtool is mostly compatible with libtool. It accepts many of
the same command-line arguments as libtool, and behaves largely in
the same way. See jlibtool --help for specific details.
If your project uses libltdl, then jlibtool may not be for you. There is a magic relationship between those two programs that jlibtool does not try to emulate. If your program requires static linking of modules, then libtool and libltdl are for you.
However, you should probably change your project to use the normal
dlopen() APIs. As of 2012, all modern Posix systems support the
dlopen() API. Windows does not (of course), but there is a
replacement library available at:
http://code.google.com/p/dlfcn-win32/
It is smaller than libltdl (~10K versus ~250K), and does not require integration with libtool.
Similar comments apply to static linking. There are few reasons any
more to statically link a binary, and then use dlopen() to load
modules. Just use dynamic libaries.
Please report any incompatibilities with libtool via the github issues system, or to the following address:
Alan DeKok <[email protected]>
The original implementation was written by the Apache Foundation. A web page is at:
http://incubator.apache.org/ip-clearance/apr-jlibtool.html
But that hasn't been updated since 2004.
The main Apache Portable Runtime version of jlibtool hasn't had a commit since July 2010. I think it's safe to say it's no longer under active development.
The changes from the upstream version are visible in git. A short list is given here:
- Added help text
- print shrext and shrext_cmds for libtool compatibility
- don't dump core if we get --shared for an executable
- add "--mode=execute", which sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH as needed
- use DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH on Mac OS X
- Complains descriptively about unknown modes, instead of silently exiting
- Better filename handling
- Put ".libs/" directory in the correct place, by interpolating it into the filename instead of prefixing it to the filename.
- "." in "./foo" doesn't signify an extension like it does in "foo.a"
- Use "static" in more places, and remove compiler warnings
- Add --debug parameter to simplify the output
- Added automatic detection of mode via magic programs CC, or magic names CC.
They were wonderful for their time. It is time to retire them.