Unusual failure of ranlib

[Stanley Friesen]

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	We have run into an unusual, and frustrating error in ranlib.
We are using it in conjunction with make and ar to maintain a series
of archives being shared by several users.  Periodically it will choke
on an existing archive with the following message:

ranlib: arname(__.SYMDEF): old format .o file

Once it has done so it will continue to choke on that archive.
Deleting __.SYMDEF from the archive and re-making it works, but ranlib
procedes to choke again next time it is used.  Also following this
the program nm fails with a similar error message. I have been unable
to determine the conditions under which this behavior is initiated.

P.S. One archive which exhibited this behavior for awhile has cleared up.?