Re: libfoo.so.X symlink not created at build time

["Bernhard R. Link" <brlink@debian.org>]

* Muammar El Khatib <muammarelkhatib@gmail.com> [110104 16:52]:
> I'm maintaining a library which new upstream version is creating at build time
> *.la, *.so (development symlink), and the library itself with the form
> libfoo-x.y.z.so but not their symlinks that match their SONAME (I was
> expecting something like libfoo.so.X).

Please take a look what their actual SONAME is (using readelf -d).

While the SONAME usually is something like libfoo.so.X, it might also be
anything else (and the dynamic linker will that look for that file at
runtime). If the SONAME is not libfoo.so.X there is no need to have a
symlink of that name.

If you have something like libfoo-X.so there, then this is not a
development symlink, but the SONAME symlink. (so if any doc says
.so.X they mean -X.so in that case and if they say .so they mean the
real .so file and not the -X.so).

As stupid as this is (especially the mixing of namespaces for
filenames), there are sadly enough libraries already doing it this way
and there is technically no problem with it.

	Bernhard R. Link