ranlib and ``ucb''

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <292 at foxvax5.UUCP> dbr at 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since Berkeley "ld" thinks your new archives are out-of-date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.