pkg-fallout: duplicate symbols?

[Bob Eager]

On Wed, 2 Sep 2020 15:58:15 +0100
Bob Eager <rde at tavi.co.uk> wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Sep 2020 14:44:36 -0000 (UTC)
> Christian Weisgerber <naddy at mips.inka.de> wrote:
> 
> > On 2020-08-22, Dimitry Andric <dim at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> >   
> > > It can be worked around by adding -fcommon to the compilation
> > > flags, but in most cases it should not be too difficult to get rid
> > > of the multiply defined symbols.    
> > 
> > Right.
> > In C, a global is _defined_ in one object file and _declared_ when
> > it is referenced from elsewhere.  See Kernighan & Ritchie.  Commons
> > are a linker artifact that was never part of the C language, as far
> > as I can tell.
> > 
> > Most instances turned up by -fno-common are accidental double
> > definitions of the same global, so you only need to turn the extra
> > definitions into declarations.  However, in some cases they were
> > actually intended as separate variables and have been merged by
> > accident.  In those cases, they should be renamed or made local
> > with "static".  
> 
> In some cases, it is deliberate. An initialised, but declared, global
> is used as a 'weak' global that can be overridden by checking its
> value.
> 
> I maintain one port that does this!

Of course, I meant 'uninitialised!