Re: lib*.so symlink

[Brian May]

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian May <address@hidden> writes:

    Alexandre> Presumably, libz.la would be that from the older
    Alexandre> version, since libz.la is used for linking.  And then,
    Alexandre> because libtool sets dlname to the SONAME of the
    Alexandre> library, you'd still get the newer version dlopened.

What might go wrong if libz.la points to the newest version, not the
oldest version?

Anyway, I would like to extend my original proposal slightly:

Currently the convention, at least on Linux is (for the example of
libz):

 /usr/lib/libz.la
 /usr/lib/libz.so -> libz.so.1
 /usr/lib/libz.so.1 -> libz.so.1.1.3
 /usr/lib/libz.so.1.1.3

proposed:

 /usr/lib/libz.so -> libz.so.1.1.3
 /usr/lib/libz.la -> libz.la.1.1.3
 /usr/lib/libz.so.1 -> libz.so.1.1.3
 /usr/lib/libz.so.1.1.3
 /usr/lib/libz.la.1.1.3

The benefit here would be you have a installation like this

 /usr/lib/libz.so -> libz.so.1.1.2
 /usr/lib/libz.la -> libz.la.1.1.2
 /usr/lib/libz.so.1 -> libz.so.1.1.3
 /usr/lib/libz.so.1.1.2
 /usr/lib/libz.so.1.1.3
 /usr/lib/libz.la.1.1.2
 /usr/lib/libz.la.1.1.3


So multiple copies of the *.la file can now be installed at the one
time, and the *.la symlink is managed in a similar way to the *.so
symlink.  While this has benefits specific to Debian (the libz.la
doesn't need to conflict between multiple packages, eg. when it is
required in the run-time library package), I believe it could also
help for the general case to (the system administrator can point *.la
file to different version if desired for some reason).

Any comments?
-- 
Brian May <address@hidden>