Re: shlibs on library packages
Christoph Lameter <clameter@waterf.org> wrote:
>On Sun, 15 Dec 1996, Stuart Lamble wrote:
>
>lamble >
>lamble >IMO, unless there are good reasons for doing things otherwise,
>lamble >the shlibs file providing the dependancy information for the
>lamble >library should depend upon something like:
>lamble >
>lamble >libfoo1 (>= 1.2.3-1)
>
>Perhaps the dependency should only be on libfoo1 without qualification?
>Or depend on 1.2.X-X ?
I don't really like this - see below.
>>From what I remember of the principles for sharable library it seesm to me
>that the interface should be stable within a major version but new calls
>can be added to it resulting in some danger of incompatibility.
>The interface should certainly be stable when the first two fields are
>constant.
True.
>I propose making library dependencies on the first two elements of the
>version nubmer.
>
>libfoo1 (>=1.2.0-0) (<<1.3.0-0)
Why? I'd be just as happy to see it just have a dependancy like
libfoo1 (>= 1.2.0-0)
or similar - the interface to existing calls, IIRC, should stay constant
with a constant soname. Upgrading to a newer library, but one with the
same soname, should not cause problems in most cases. It'd probably be
easiest, as I suggested, to have the dependancy on >= the first revision
of the Debian package with the same upstream version.
And of course, since shared libraries have the soname in the package
name, there's no risk of libfoo 2.0.0 satisfying the dependancy, thereby
breaking those packages depending on it.
Depending on libfoo1 without qualification would be a mistake, IMO -
better to have a ratchet-type system: you can crank up the version
number without problems, but going backwards should be harder (because
of possible missing functionality.)
>The above is certainly a big problem. The same issue comes up when
>dpkg-shlibdeps builds dependencies on libc. When I want to add
>a package to my old Debian 1.1 system I always have to upgrade the
>library unless I specify --force-depends. And I am hesitant to do anything
>serious like upgrading the c library on some of our critical systems. I'd
>rather risk the package failing than the whole system.
Agreed.
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