On Fri, 21 May 1999 kim@pvv.ntnu.no wrote:

: > Normally a gcc implementation would put them in libgcc.a, since they are 
: > support libraries for a compiler implementation.  The NetBSD implementors 
: > chose to place most of the functions from that library in libc.so 
: > (presumably to simplify shared library handling for the common case).  I 
: > had nothing to do with that decision; I'm not entirely happy with it, but 
: > I have to live with it.
: 
: What a mess. 

It's actually a speed vs. program-size tradeoff.

You *cannot* put the backing code for an operation such as the following
into libm; it either must be inlined by the compiler or part of a compiler
support library such as libgcc or libc:

  double a;
  unsigned b;
  b = a;

: In my experience, it has always been the users responsibility to specify
: -lm
: when compiling code with math.

However, it is *not* required to use -lm when using basic operators (-lm
specifies a library of *math functions*).

-- 
-- Todd Vierling (Personal tv@pobox.com; Bus. todd_vierling@xn.xerox.com)