Re: totally confused by versioning system of libtool...

[Bill Northcott]

On 14/05/2005, at 3:45 AM, Ed Hartnett wrote:
> > But I don't understand why it's not 0.5.0 and 0.6.0. That is,  
> > wouldn't
> > it be a case of incrementing the minor version number, the middle
> > number?
>
> If libexample 0.0.6 is merely a bug fix, it is usually customary to  
> only
> updated the least significant number in the version string.  
> Customarily,
> however, only the very first number is ever used for runtime  
> linking (so
> libexample 0.0.0, libexample 0.0.1, and libexample 0.1.0 would all  
> replace
> each other, but libexample 0.1.0 and libexample 1.0.0 could be  
> installed
> in parallel).
MacOS X/Darwin regards both major and minor version numbers as  
significant.  Also it stores two library versions in each linked  
executable file the 'current-version' which is the one linked against  
and the 'compatibility-version' which is the oldest which will  
support the executable (possibly with reduced functionality.   
Similarly libraries export their current version and the oldest API  
which they support.

How should libtool versioning be used so as to support both the MacOS  
X/Darwin scheme and the Linux ELF way of doing things?  Is this  
possible, or should one write specific makefile routines to adjust  
version numbers at install time?

Bill Northcott