Add the -fno-shared-implib flag

[ghc-hetmet.git] / docs / users_guide / phases.xml

diff --git a/docs/users_guide/phases.xml b/docs/users_guide/phases.xml
index f3a6e33..ec14364 100644 (file)
--- a/docs/users_guide/phases.xml
+++ b/docs/users_guide/phases.xml
@@ -642,12 +642,10 @@ $ cat foo.hspp</screen>
         </term>
         <listitem>
           <para>Generate position-independent code (code that can be put into
-          shared libraries). This currently works on Mac OS X; it works on
-          PowerPC Linux when using the native code generator (-fasm).
-          It is not quite ready to be used yet for x86 Linux.
-          On Windows, position-independent code is never used,
-          and on PowerPC64 Linux, position-independent code is always used,
-          so the flag is a no-op on those platforms.</para>
+          shared libraries). This currently works on Linux x86 and x86-64 when
+          using the native code generator (-fasm).
+          On Windows, position-independent code is never used
+          so the flag is a no-op on that platform.</para>
         </listitem>
       </varlistentry>
 
@@ -659,8 +657,8 @@ $ cat foo.hspp</screen>
           <para>When generating code, assume that entities imported from a
           different package will reside in a different shared library or
           binary.</para>
-          <para>Note that this option also causes GHC to use shared libraries
-          when linking.</para>
+          <para>Note that using this option when linking causes GHC to link
+         against shared libraries.</para>
         </listitem>
       </varlistentry>
     </variablelist>
@@ -825,8 +823,10 @@ $ cat foo.hspp</screen>
           <indexterm><primary><option>-dynamic</option></primary></indexterm>
         </term>
         <listitem>
-          <para>This flag switches to shared Haskell libraries for
-          linking. See <xref linkend="building-packages" /> on how to
+          <para>This flag tells GHC to link against shared Haskell libraries.
+         This flag only affects the selection of dependent libraries, not
+         the form of the current target (see -shared).
+         See <xref linkend="using-shared-libs" /> on how to
           create them.</para>
 
           <para>Note that this option also has an effect on
@@ -863,6 +863,19 @@ $ cat foo.hspp</screen>
         </listitem>
       </varlistentry>
 
+      <varlistentry>
+        <term>
+          <option>-dynload</option>
+          <indexterm><primary><option>-dynload</option></primary></indexterm>
+        </term>
+        <listitem>
+          <para>
+           This flag selects one of a number of modes for finding shared
+           libraries at runtime. See <xref linkend="finding-shared-libs"/> for
+           a description of each mode.
+          </para>
+        </listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
 
       <varlistentry>
         <term>
@@ -966,23 +979,11 @@ $ cat foo.hspp</screen>
               machine.  See <xref linkend="using-smp" />.</para>
 
               <para>The ability to make a foreign call that does not
-              block all other Haskell threads.</para>
-
-              <para>The ability to invoke foreign exported Haskell
-              functions from multiple OS threads.</para>
+              block all other Haskell threads, and to invoke
+              foreign-exported Haskell functions from multiple OS
+              threads. See <xref linkend="ffi-threads" />.</para>
             </listitem>
           </itemizedlist>
-
-          <para>With <option>-threaded</option>, calls to foreign
-          functions are made using the same OS thread that created the
-          Haskell thread (if it was created by a call to a foreign
-          exported Haskell function), or an arbitrary OS thread
-          otherwise (if the Haskell thread was created by
-          <literal>forkIO</literal>).</para>
-
-          <para>More details on the use of "bound threads" in the
-          threaded runtime can be found in the <ulink
-          url="../libraries/base/Control-Concurrent.html"><literal>Control.Concurrent</literal></ulink> module.</para>
         </listitem>
       </varlistentry>
 
@@ -1051,6 +1052,28 @@ $ cat foo.hspp</screen>
               />).</para>
         </listitem>
       </varlistentry>
+          
+      <varlistentry>
+        <term>
+          <option>-fno-shared-implib</option>
+          <indexterm><primary><option>-fno-shared-implib</option></primary>
+          </indexterm>
+        </term>
+        <listitem>
+          <para>DLLs on Windows are typically linked to by linking to a corresponding
+            <literal>.lib</literal> or <literal>.dll.a</literal> - the so-called import library.
+            GHC will typically generate such a file for every DLL you create by compiling in
+            <literal>-shared</literal> mode. However, sometimes you don't want to pay the
+            disk-space cost of creating this import library, which can be substantial - it
+            might require as much space as the code itself, as Haskell DLLs tend to export
+            lots of symbols.</para>
+            
+          <para>As long as you are happy to only be able to link to the DLL using
+            <literal>GetProcAddress</literal> and friends, you can supply the
+            <option>-fno-shared-implib</option> flag to disable the creation of the import
+            library entirely.</para>
+        </listitem>
+      </varlistentry>
     </variablelist>
   </sect2>