Re: PROPOSAL: libtool archive (`*.la) files in `-dev' packages
Hi Joey,
On 4 May, Joey Hess wrote:
> Can you get more details? I'm concerned that though .la files may be useful
> on some architectures libtool supports, they may be quite useless in debian.
> Reading some .la files, they seem to contain only things like libraries the
> library depends on and versioning info. Is there really any info in
> those files that cannot be obtained in other ways on linux?
While they may not be as useful for shared libs on Debian, they do
provide dependency information for static libs. However, I don't feel
that I can give the `.la' files the justice that they deserve so I'll
consult with the libtool maintainers since I am sure they can give much
more concrete reasons than I can.
> On linux, ldd of a .so file can automatically find out dependancy info. I
> don't know how to find out versioning info by examining a .so. (if someone
> knows, please tell me; debhelper could use a clean way to get sonames!) This
> could be an advantage to providing .la files, but then again maybe it's
> do-able without them.
Right. Static libs are still an issue. Again, I'll check with the
libtool folks for more advantages. :)
> I'd like some concrete advantages be be found before we make this policy.
Indeed. That's very reasonable. I'll let you know what the libtool
folks say. Maybe I can get them to join this discussion.
-Ossama
--
Ossama Othman <othman@cs.wustl.edu>
Center for Distributed Object Computing, Washington University, St. Louis
58 60 1A E8 7A 66 F4 44 74 9F 3C D4 EF BF 35 88 1024/8A04D15D 1998/08/26
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