Re: Changes in handling library dependencies
>>>>> "Ben" == Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org> writes:
Ben> Shared library information in the .la is just redundancy of
Ben> what info can be gotten from the library itself. It is only
Ben> useful to the human reader (who understands little about ldd
Ben> and objdump). Ld does not use it, and neither does ldso. So
Ben> it is not needed.
With all due respect, I think you have misunderstood libtool. I
suspect you are not the only one though.
This is really getting off topic, and I think has been discussed
before, but I think I have found a serious limitation of libtool that
may conflict with the new proposal for shared libraries.
>From the documentation:
(1) However, you should never use `-L' or `-l' flags to link against
an uninstalled libtool library. Just specify the relative path to the
`.la' file, such as `../intl/libintl.la'. This is a design decision to
eliminate any ambiguity when linking against uninstalled shared
libraries.
Normally this works, and is the procedure for linking *binaries*. It
works. Lots of packages use it, including Heimdal. I think Kaffe does
the same. libtool will automatically use the shared library if
creating a dynamic binary, otherwise it will use the static library.
It does not work when linking a library though, unless the components
are convenience libraries. Convenience libraries never get installed.
They are completely unsuitable for libraries that need to be
installed. Please do not ask my further about it, but read the
documentation instead.
I consider this a bug in libtool that shared libraries are treated
differently to standard binaries like this.
Furthermore *.la files *do* provide useful information, as it was a
decision made right here in this mailing list to allow -dev packages
to come supplied with *.la files. I don't particular want to rehash
all the old arguments again, please find the archives if you want.
--
Brian May <bam@debian.org>
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