llvm-ranlib does not support the -t flag

[brad0]

GNU ranlib supports a -t flag which OpenBSD utilizes.

-t  Update the timestamp of the symbol map of an archive.

[brad0]

@MaskRay

[llvmbot]

@llvm/issue-subscribers-tools-llvm-ar-llvm-ranlib

[MaskRay]

Nowaday reproducible build practice discourages this: https://reproducible-builds.org/docs/timestamps/ .
Also, archive timestamps are mostly useless. Is there any reason OpenBSD needs this?

In binutils ranlib, the operation is a no-op for GNU style archives, (in the deterministic mode) for BSD style archives.

If llvm-project implements this, we will make quite a bit code for a pretty unused legacy feature.

[brad0]

Looking back at the commit history for (our) GNU libtool, the reason was..

revision 1.3
date: 2001/08/20 21:53:03;  author: espie;  state: Exp;  lines: +20 -6;
ranlib -t on install, somewhat faster, sometimes MUCH faster.

AFAIK the flag was never added anywhere else, but GNU libtool is so commonly used.

I submitted a patch to start the slow process of having the flag usage removed (Bitrig is long dead and I will clean that up as well) and eventually propagate out to the ecosystem.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libtool-patches/2022-08/msg00000.html