compiler framework, fortran, libtool, and other headaches

[Dan McMahill <dmcmahill%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

Hello,

I recently added lang/gcc44 to pkgsrc with C, C++, OBJC, and FORTRAN 
support.  Then I updated mk/compiler/gcc.mk accordingly.  I used the 
entries for lang/gcc34 as an example in gcc.mk for what to do about gcc44.

However, the more I have looked at this, the more problems I see.  I'm 
wondering if I have just confused myself or if we have a more 
fundamental problem we need to address.

Here are the issues I see.

- if I try to just universally use gcc44 (or gcc34) by setting GCC_REQD 
in my /etc/mk.conf, I have a bootstrap problem in that I end up with 
circular dependencies when trying to build things like digest.  This is 
especially true for a bulk build.

- Since pkgsrc uses its own libtool, we really need to use one compiler 
for all packages (on a given system) and this compiler (and at least the 
C, C++, and FORTRAN languages) needs to be available when libtool is 
built.  This is because libtool stores information about the particular 
compiler.  It makes me wonder if we need to have a per-compiler libtool 
or if we need to somehow build a new libtool each time a libtool-using 
package is built.  On these lines, lang/f2c builds a shared library and 
uses libtool so to avoid the circular dependencies, mk/compiler/f2c.mk 
had a hook to ignore needing f2c when building libtool.  But then this 
results in a not-quite-right libtool build.

- mk/compiler/g95.mk also ignores g95 when building libtool.  This is 
probably a holdover from f2c.mk

- mk/compiler/gcc.mk has some code at the end where it tries to decide 
if gcc supplied a fortran compiler.  However the code only works if the 
gcc packages have already been installed.  The code doesn't see if the 
gcc packages *can* provide fortran if simply compiled and installed.  So 
we have another chicken and egg and in particular we have no way to tell 
pkgsrc "use gcc3-f77" or "use gcc44 that has gfortran" via a mk.conf 
setting.

- In the past when I was using pkgsrc on solaris, my recipe was to use 
whatever gcc I could find pre-built for solaris and bootstrap pkgsrc 
into something like /opt/pkgsrc-gcc and then build the latest gcc 
packges.  Then I'd point to those compilers and bootstrap pkgsrc into 
/opt/pkg or /usr/pkg and use my locally built gcc as the compiler.  This 
method seemed to work, but it was quite a few years ago and doesn't seem 
quite compatible with the compiler framework and things like GCC_REQD 
because of using pkg_admin, but I may have not correctly followed the 
code through here.

At the end of the day, all I really want is a way to specify 
PKGSRC_FORTRAN=gfortran and have it Just Work, but some of the 
interactions with libtool have me a little confused as to how all this 
can be made to really work smoothly and correctly.

Comments?  Suggestions?

Thanks
-Dan