Re: New Policy Topic: *.la files in */lib/
On Sat, 21 Feb 1998, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> I assume that those files are useful to make debian packages more
> portable (?) and support auto{make,conf}.
More informative. More useful in a few cases (dlopen'ing). Not more
portable -- at least, I don't see how. libtool makes them after building
the libraries, and it uses them to link other programs with not installed
libraries. For example, wmaker's Makefile reads:
wmaker_LDADD = \
generic/libwwm.a \
$(top_builddir)/wrlib/libwraster.la \
@LIBPL_LIBS@ \
...
libwraster is not yet installed when building wmaker. libtool uses the
file to link wmaker against libwraster.so.whatever.
> Open question: In which package should this file be included, in the library
> package or in the *-dev package?
It think it's *-dev; the files are of little use unless you want to check
a static library version (that info is included in the .la file). Or
better, in the same package as the .a library (this is not always *-dev,
is it?)
Marcelo
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