Re: [Evms-devel] EVMS: shared libraries with unversioned sonames

[Tollef Fog Heen <tollef@add.no>]

* Matt Zimmerman 

| If portability is an issue, the software in question should be using libtool
| anyway, which takes care of this for you.  If it will only ever work on
| GNU/Linux, ldconfig -n with an explanatory comment should be sufficient.

Example from where I've used ldconfig -n:

mklibs.py from boot-floppies doesn't generate the needed symlinks.
This took me about a day of working to discover, since I booted up a
system which gave me, well, strange error messages.  Running ldconfig
-n generated all the symlinks I needed, and was a quick and easy was
of doing it.

Why ldconfig?

       ldconfig - determine run-time link bindings
[snip]
      ldconfig  creates the necessary links and cache (for use by the run-
       time linker, ld.so) to the most recent shared libraries found in the
       directories   specified   on   the   command   line,   in  the  file
       /etc/ld.so.conf, and in the trusted directories (/usr/lib and /lib).

This seems like the tool I want to use.  The man page does not mention
that it is a Linux-only tool and should not be used it one wants
cross-platform portability.  Until somebody writes a cross-platform
utility to do what I want to do, ldconfig _is_ the right tool for the
job.  What does the Hurd use instead of ldconfig?  I presume that they
too have to create the necessary symlinks somehow?

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen
Unix _IS_ user friendly... It's just selective about who its friends are.