All, The max_cmd_len variable is used to determine how long a command can be executed. When Libtool generates a link command that is longer than this, it breaks the command into successive "ld -r" invocations that are just short enough to be executed. There are other parts of the commands that aren't included when testing, so the max_cmd_len variable can't be set to the actual limit, but must be smaller. Also, finding the actual limit would take much longer so we set max_cmd_len to something safe. It is true that the checking takes some time, ~three seconds on a newer Sun workstation (with large limit), but it isn't clear to me why it would take even longer under MinGW. It is reasonable to set this to a hard limit if the test takes a very long time, but the value to use is the same one that Libtool's configury will calculate. The problem with GTK+ is that they archive two (or more) object files with the same name, so successive ar commands replace the previous one with the new one. If a package needs the command line broken up, setting this value to the maximum possible will speed up compilation drastically, IMHO an important issue.
my $0.02 Robert -- Robert Boehne Software Engineer Ricardo Software Chicago Technical Center TEL: (630)789-0003 x. 238 FAX: (630)789-0127 email: rboehne AT ricardo-us DOT com _______________________________________________ Libtool mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/libtool
