Why ar doesn't call ranlib on Mac?

[Alexy Khrabrov]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 10:17 PM, Ryan Schmidt <ryandesign at macports.org> wrote:
>> with Apple's gcc on an Intel Mac try to create a universal binary?
>
> No, you have to add various cflags, ldflags, etc. to get a universal.
>
> http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2005/tn2137.html

OK -- I've got another "archive has no contents" error from ld today,
when building a Haskell project form source.  Admittedly I don't get
it from MacPorts, so this is just an investigation with the most
knowledgeable Mac folks I know.  :)

In several cases already I've found that I get these "archive has no
contents" errors where some other folks don't.  My XCode is the latest
though, 312, gcc build 5490.   I don't try to build anything
universal.  Why would I get the error where others wouldn't?  I've
checked my ar is the same as theirs.  And if Peter asserts that this
ar should create table of contents, why doesn't it then?

Here's some interesting info on Mac ar:
http://osdir.com/ml/lang.haskell.libraries/2005-03/msg00076.html

Any ideas on what to check/alter?
Cheers,
Alexy