Why is im2rec ever built with static mxnet lib?

[Dick Carter <di...@apache.org>]

In CMakeLists.txt, the recipe for building im2rec includes the lines:

  if(MSVC)
    target_link_libraries(im2rec mxnet)
  else()
    target_link_libraries(im2rec ${BEGIN_WHOLE_ARCHIVE} mxnet_static ${END_WHOLE_ARCHIVE})
  endif()

Is there some requirement on unix or windows that forces the choice of static-vs-dynamic linking to mxnet?  Is the motivation for static linking that in general one prefers a more portable binary (even at the expense of a 2GB executable)?  Should there be a flag to let the user select the build approach?

Re: Why is im2rec ever built with static mxnet lib?

[Leonard Lausen <la...@apache.org>]

There is no particular reason for this. The divergence between msvc and
non-msvc has been removed in master and static / dynamic linkage depends
on MXNET_BUILD_SHARED_LIBS option.

See https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/blob/48c21988cdcde9721cb44804b775d8f0edfcb6cc/CMakeLists.txt#L797-L802

Dick Carter <di...@apache.org> writes:

> In CMakeLists.txt, the recipe for building im2rec includes the lines:
>
>   if(MSVC)
>     target_link_libraries(im2rec mxnet)
>   else()
>     target_link_libraries(im2rec ${BEGIN_WHOLE_ARCHIVE} mxnet_static ${END_WHOLE_ARCHIVE})
>   endif()
>
> Is there some requirement on unix or windows that forces the choice of static-vs-dynamic linking to mxnet?  Is the motivation for static linking that in general one prefers a more portable binary (even at the expense of a 2GB executable)?  Should there be a flag to let the user select the build approach?