s, instead of listing all the object
files every time.

   If you just want to link this convenience library into programs, then
you could just ignore libtool entirely, and use the old 'ar' and
'ranlib' commands (or the corresponding GNU Automake '_LIBRARIES'
rules).  You can even install a convenience library using GNU Libtool,
though you probably don't want to and hence GNU Automake doesn't allow
you to do so.

     burger$ libtool --mode=install ./install-sh -c libhello.a \
                     /local/lib/libhello.a
     ./install-sh -c libhello.a /local/lib/libhello.a
     ranlib /local/lib/libhello.a
     burger$

   Using libtool for static library installation protects your library
from being accidentally stripped (if the installer used the '-s' flag),
as well as automatically running the correct 'ranlib' command.

   But libtool libraries are more than just collections of object files:
they can also carry library dependency information, which old archives
do not.  If you want to create a libtool static convenience library, you
can omit the '-rpath' flag and use '-static' to indicate that you're
only interested in a static library.  When you link a program with such
a library, libtool will actually link all object files and dependency
libraries into the program.

   If you omit both '-rpath' and '-static', libtool will create a
convenience library that can be used to create other libtool libraries,
even shared ones.  Just like in the static case, the library behaves as
an alias to a set of object files and dependency libraries, but in this
case the object files are suitable for inclusion in shared libraries.
But be careful not to link a single convenience library, directly or
indirectly, into a single program or library, otherwise you may get
errors about symbol redefinitions.

   The key is remembering that a convenience library contains PIC
objects, and can be linked where a list of PIC objects makes sense; i.e.
into a shared library.  A static convenience library contains non-PIC
objects, so can be linked into an old static library, or a program.

   When GNU Automake is used, you should use 'noinst_LTLIBRARIES'
instead of 'lib_LTLIBRARIES' for convenience libraries, so that the
'-rpath' option is not passed when they are linked.

   As a rule of thumb, link a libtool convenience library into at most
one libtool library, and never into a program, and link libtool static
convenience libraries only into programs, and only if you need to carry
library dependency information to the user of the static convenience
library.

   Another common situation where static linking is desirable is in
creating a standalone binary.  Use libtool to do the linking and add the
'-all-static' flag.

