Yes, this issue appears only with clang-cl.exe. The issue has been fixed for cl.exe.
I do not have icl.exe to test it, unfortunately.
- Kirill Makurin
From: Ileana Dumitrescu
Sent: Friday, June 6, 2025 1:13 AM
To: 74175@debbugs.gnu.org
Cc: Kirill Makurin
Subject: Re: bug#74175: libtool mishandles some compiler flags when used with MSVC tools
On 05/06/2025 13:09, Kirill Makurin wrote:
> I am actually wrong. If we would pass -Wl and friends as is to clang.exe
> it would handle them correctly by itself.
>
> Note: clang.exe installed with Visual Studio uses link.exe, just like
> cl.exe would.
Thank you for the updates. Is this an issue specifically with clang-cl?
I believe the issue is fixed with cl/cl.exe in development.
> What do you think about checking whether compiler defines _MSC_VER macro?
I do not have a strong opinion on this, so it could be added. Could you
submit a patch for review?
> - Kirill Makurin
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* bug-libtool-bounces+maiddaisuki=outlook.com@gnu.org <bug-
> libtool-bounces+maiddaisuki=outlook.com@gnu.org> on behalf of Kirill
> Makurin <maiddaisuki@outlook.com>
> *Sent:* Thursday, June 5, 2025 6:58 PM
> *To:* Ileana Dumitrescu <ileanadumitrescu95@gmail.com>;
> 74175@debbugs.gnu.org <74175@debbugs.gnu.org>
> *Subject:* bug#74175: libtool mishandles some compiler flags when used
> with MSVC tools
> Hi Ileana,
>
> The fix seems incomplete.
>
> See attached file for `libtool --mode=link` invocation with clang-cl.
> You may notice that the flag passed with -Wl is passed twice: once on
> its own (just like it was with cl.exe with the bug) and once properly
> with -Wl.
>
> Do you think checking compiler's name is a good idea? AFAIK, all three
> of cl.exe, clang-cl.exe and icl.exe (MSVC-like compilers handled by
> Automake's `compile` wrapper) define _MSC_VER macro. If libtool does
> check, it should be at least consistent with `compile` wrapper.
There are checks for compilers in libtool, like "cl* | icl*)" for
cc_basename when on a windows-like system. If libtool's configuration
when using clang-cl.exe is incorrect, these could be updated to avoid
clang-cl.exe or a new check could be added for the needed configuration.
> Maybe libtool could check during configuration whether compiler defines
> this macro to decide how to pass linker flags? Since `compile` wrapper
> should usually be involved, we need to just pass -Wl flags and friends
> as is, `compile` takes care of them.
>
> There is one problematic case though. If we would use clang.exe
> installed with Visual Studio, this will not work. It defines _MSC_VER,
> but it usus gcc-like command line options.
--
Ileana Dumitrescu
GPG Public Key: FA26 CA78 4BE1 8892 7F22 B99F 6570 EA01 146F 7354