OPTLINK needs to die.

[Jarrett Billingsley]

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 11:32 PM, Walter Bright
<newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote:
> Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
>>
>> http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=424
>
>
> I just added this to the bug report:
>
> ======================
> The compiler already has a switch to generate multiple obj files from one
> source file: -multiobj. I use it for debugging. But it would be a royal pain
> to use if there's a lot.

Why isn't it documented?  And you're damn right it would be a pain.
Especially when I'm compiling three external libraries and a large
library of my own.

> A better way is to compile to a library with the -lib switch. That splits
> the module into a zillion obj files, and stuffs them all into the library.
> Then, link with the library (the main() program will still have to be
> separate).
> =======================
>
> Can you give it a try?

Not easily.  Under my normal compilation scheme I'm not building a
library and I have no idea how well bud/rebuild will cope with a
zillion object files.

In any case the -lib switch is just sidestepping the problems with the
linker and object format by pushing some of the linker's
responsibilities into the compiler.  DMD (and the D language itself,
if you want to count the 16MB limit on static data, which has no place
in a portable language specification!) already makes far too many
concessions to deal with the ridiculous constraints of the linker.
Please, stop designing around the problem and fix it.