Re: ABI Compatibility (was Re: Installation woes for the average user...)

[Nicola Pero]

> This policy caused every framework and every application to require  
> recompiling
> (well, technically only relinking, but good luck persuading GNUstep  
> make to do that) FOR NO REASON.

The recompiling occurs because the new headers are newer than the  
object file that depends on them.
GNUstep-make has no idea if the change in headers is incompatible or  
not, and hence if you ask it to rebuild
by typing 'make', it will recompile.  Which sounds like the safest  
thing to do. ;-)

You can easily prevent the recompilation (and force a relinking) by  
just doing

 touch obj/*.o

Then the *.o files will be newer than the headers - if you then type  
'make', only the relinking will occur
(the relinking will occur because now the *.o files are now newer than  
the final object to build).

Of course, if the soname was changed, maybe there were enough actual  
changes that a full rebuild
is a good idea.  I don't know what library or changes we are talking  
about.  Without further details,
I would rebuild everything myself (which is definitely a lot of work).

Thanks