Re: Relinking to wrong version

[Ralf Wildenhues]

* Dustin J. Mitchell wrote on Fri, Oct 12, 2007 at 07:39:04AM CEST:
> 
> Why is libtool letting the linker look for the library in the
> mode=relink invocation, when it used an explicit path to the .so in
> the mode=link invocation?

Hmm, I would have to go and check whether there is something that
*requires* libtool to do so on GNU/Linux.  It's the case on some other
systems that, with an explicit path to the .so on the command line, the 
system linker puts that whole path in the DT_NEEDED entry, rather than
just the basename of it (IIRC OpenBSD was a candidate for this).  Which
is undesirable for several reasons.

But on GNU/Linux this only happens if the dependent library wasn't given
a soname, which libtool takes care of to do for libraries it builds.

OTOH, I can think of a good reason libtool wouldn't want to operate any
differently: third-party users of said installed library expect to be
able to link against it using `-LLIBDIR -llib' (let's ignore run-time
issues for the moment).  Thus we should be able to, too, as soon as this
library is installed.  So at least it serves as a good kind of test
whether your installation works or not.  If this fails due to other
versions of the library in previously-listed search directories, then
third-party users (who may also list those search directories early, due
to unrelated libraries) will have the same problems.  Makes sense?

Cheers,
Ralf