Comment (by Roland Haas):

Branch https://bitbucket.org/cactuscode/cactus/branch/rhaas/ld_xxx_flags contains code to avoid using CXXFLAGS and CPPFLAGS in the linker command line. It does (have to) introduce a full set of LD_XXX_FLAGS variables that all default to their CXX_XXX_FLAGS analog if LD is not set (in which case LD defaults to CXX).

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Ticket URL: https://bitbucket.org/einsteintoolkit/tickets/issues/2553/cactus-link-command-uses-cppflags-and