Re: Hardcoding of .la file paths in .la files

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

On Tue, Oct 07, 2003 at 09:30:56AM +0100, Scott James Remnant wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 07:33, Chris Cheney wrote:
> 
> > Does anyone happen to know why .la files hardcode the paths to .la files
> > that they depend on?
> > 
> To guarantee that you don't end up linking with something totally
> different if the app being compiled happens to have a different search
> path.

Do they really believe that?

First, the filename of a .la file doesn't guarantee anything of the
sort, because the name isn't versioned.  It will be replaced with
an incompatible one with every major upgrade.

Second, if a distribution really wants to keep compatibility in such
a case, the best way is to move the old library to a special oldlibs
directory and tinker with the search path.  (This is better than
putting the new library in an unusual place, because the rest of
the world expects libraries to be in /usr/lib).

Thus, this approach breaks the best way in which compatibility CAN
be preserved.

Richard Braakman