consitency in library filenames

[Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>]

Do we have any rules or policies at present that say how library filenames
should be formatted in debian packages? I'm asking because debhelper needs
to look at the library filename if it's trying to generate a shlibs file for
a library package. It needs to be able to figure out the soname and the
library name. 

I had been expecting library files to have a format like:
	<library name>.so.<soname>.<subversion>

This format is alluded to in the packaging manual section 12, but it doesn't
say packages have to use it.

But Matthias Klose points out:
> Hmm, the tcl/tk libraries encode the major version in the name
> (libtcl8.0.so.x); I think in this case you don't need the minor
> version. The new egcs libstdc++ does the same and you only have a
> major version left. I have to find this section, but I am not sure why
> minor numbers vor shared libs are always necessary, because the soname
> only includes the major number. libc6 doesn't use it either.

So it looks like we don't really have any consitency, so debhelper is going
to fail pretty often at coming up with valid values for the shlibs file. 

So can anyone shed light on this and let me know if we have a policy on
library names I'm overlooking, or, better yet, if there's some way I can
take a file, and ignoring the filename, extract the soname and library name
from it?

-- 
see shy jo