Re: New Policy Topic: *.la files in */lib/
On Mon, Feb 23, 1998 at 07:15:47PM -0601, Marcelo E. Magallon wrote:
> 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.
I thought it would be more portable because of libtool, but this is actually
the other way round then, if you use libtool, you have the *.la file.
> 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?)
Well, it probably should be (as it is suggested so by policy). I think they
are so small that it would be not harmful to have them installed, too. What
do other people think? Could we add a paragraph to the appropriate section:
"If your package uses libtool to create the library, you shoudl include the
*.la description file under <whatever>/lib in the *-dev package."
Marcus
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