[fpc-pascal] fpc in symlinked directory

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Wed, 26 Mar 2014, Tomas Hajny wrote:

> On Wed, March 26, 2014 15:35, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
>> On Wed, 26 Mar 2014, Tomas Hajny wrote:
>>>> The two should at least match; and you will not be surprised to hear
>>>> that
>>>> I think the linker file is correct :)
>>> .
>>> .
>>>
>>> It makes no sense to use absolute paths in debug information, because it
>>> would make distribution of units compiled with debug information to
>>> other
>>> machines impossible (or more precisely - it would be possible to
>>> distribute them, but debugging would not work :/ ).
>>
>> I was waiting for this argument, because it is totally wrong :-)
>>
>> The paths on another system may be wildly different anyway.
>> Just take a debian vs. fedora system.
>>
>> Paths are valid only on the system where the compiler/debugger are
>> running;
>> anything else is wishful thinking.
>
> OK, I enjoy being wrong. ;-) My point is that the system where the
> compiler is (was) running may be different from the system where the
> debugger is running. Among others, this scenario is explicitly supported
> by FPC with its parameter supporting creation of a script for linking on a
> (different) host machine.

I understand the logic.

>
> And I'd indeed wish to keep possibility of copying my compiled units to a
> different machine (which may not follow the same rules for location of the
> home directories, or may provide some other designated space for my work
> outside of the standard home directory) while still being able to debug
> the created executable there (as easily as possible - that is fulfilled by
> the current situation of using relative paths within debug information,
> but would be negatively impacted by a potential change to absolute paths
> everywhere in FPC including specifically debug information).

At the very least I think that we should be consistent and use the same 
filenames in link script and debug info ?

For all other problems: making an option telling the compiler to use only 
absolute/relative paths seems like an option which can be used to cater 
for all situations.

Michael.