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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: ranlib and ``ucb''
Message-ID: <2041@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 9-Jul-86 05:07:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.2041
Posted: Wed Jul  9 05:07:53 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 10-Jul-86 01:26:45 EDT
References: <1916@brl-smoke.ARPA> <1278@ncoast.UUCP> <292@foxvax5.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 21

In article <292@foxvax5.UUCP> dbr@foxvax5.UUCP (D.B. Robinson (Douglas)) writes:
>Now that System V no longer supports ranlib(1), what happens to the code
>in libraries that have cycles in their references?

No, no -- you misunderstand the situation.
UNIX System V does not have a "ranlib" command because
it does not need one.  The UNIX System V "ar" maintains an
entry-point table of contents for the COFF (object module)
members, which "ld" uses.  This is the *same* scheme as the
one using "ranlib", except the table of contents is kept
automatically up-to-date by "ar" instead of having to run
a separate command afterwards.

This is a real win if you copy library archives around,
since Berkeley "ld" thinks your new archives are out-of-date
if you don't run "ranlib" on the newly-created libraries,
whereas the correct information is embedded in the library
and follows it around under the System V scheme.

Of course, it does uglify the archiver, which acquires
special-case code for object-module members.