when was the last time a system needed a separate ranlib step? this feels like something someone with a vendetta's evaluated
lads. the bitch with a vendetta is me. im writing the blog post. it's "30 years ago"
behold post 015. where da lib runnin, which analyses the perennial "when was the last time a system needed a separate ranlib step?" question (alongside, unfortunately, more UNIX lineage than anyone should care for) https://nabijaczleweli.xyz/content/blogn_t/015-ranlib.html
@nabijaczleweli Meaning RANLIB might as well be set to /bin/false by default on some systems to clear out the antique mess.
@lanodan i mean, by definition, unless you're using ar -S (and let's be real, you aren't), you can have RANLIB=true (effectively like SunOS) and you're not losing anything; so that sounds mighty complicated to do instead of /ranlib/d and /RANLIB/d
and if you /are/ somehow using ar -S, then just run ar -s after instead of ranlib
@nabijaczleweli Yeah having a noop ranlib command (like a symlink to /bin/true) is probably a good enough way to keep compatibility, but it's also just backwards compat for code that's very historic if not possibly broken, like if it would expect a file update like GNU binutils and LLVM do.
@lanodan no for sure, but lest we forget: the current autohell recommendation is that you detect and use ranlib. that's the crazy bit to me