static linking and opportunistic dynamic linking problem

[Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry@debian.org>]

Hi,

I've an interesting bug scenario sent to me by someone trying to build
partimage statically.
The partimage build is being done to make a small minimal-environment
binary (sort of boot-cd, etc.).

partimage depends on libnewt, which I maintain. libnewt-dev ships libnewt.a.
libnewt opportunistically links to libfribidi if it is present; it uses
dlopen() to do so.

However the partimage build fails when done with './configure
--enable-all-static', as it
(reasonably) does not link against libdl.

/bin/sh ../../libtool --silent --mode=link g++  -g -O2   -o partimage
-all-static netclient.o imagefile.o misc.o image_net.o buffer.o
gui_text.o main.o imginfo.o cbitmap.o interface_base.o interface_newt.o
interface_none.o mbr_backup.o -L/usr/lib -lslang fs/libfs.a
../shared/libshared.a -lcrypt -lz -lnewt -lbz2 -lpthread 
/usr/lib/libslang.a /usr/lib/libnewt.a /usr/lib/libssl.a
/usr/lib/libcrypto.a -lcrypto -lssl
netclient.o: In function `CNetClient::Connect(char*, unsigned short)':
/home/alastair/tmp/partimage-0.6.4/src/client/netclient.cpp:71: warning:
Using 'gethostbyname' in statically linked applications requires at
runtime the shared libraries from the glibc version used for linking
/usr/lib/libnewt.a(newt.o): In function `wchar_to_textmod_visual':
(.text+0x14d4): undefined reference to `dlerror'
/usr/lib/libnewt.a(newt.o): In function `wchar_to_textmod_visual':
(.text+0x1502): undefined reference to `dlsym'
/usr/lib/libnewt.a(newt.o): In function `wchar_to_textmod_visual':
(.text+0x1825): undefined reference to `dlopen'
/usr/lib/libnewt.a(newt.o): In function `wchar_to_textmod_visual':
(.text+0x1838): undefined reference to `dlerror'
/usr/lib/libnewt.a(newt.o): In function `wchar_to_textmod_visual':
(.text+0x185d): undefined reference to `dlopen'
/usr/lib/libnewt.a(newt.o): In function `wchar_to_textmod_visual':
(.text+0x189f): undefined reference to `dlerror'

Now,
 nm /usr/lib/libnewt.a  | grep dlopen
   U dlopen

So where do people think the bug lies?
 - Should libdl be compiled into libnewt.a ?
 - Should the static version of libnewt be built differently so as to
not call dlopen()?
    - if so, any recommendations on how?
 - Is the bug in partimage?

Regards
Alastair McKinstry