Re: disable static libraries?

[Ed Hartnett]

"address@hidden" <address@hidden> writes:

>>(The .a file is always a static library, right?)
>
> Not on AIX. AIX differentiates between the notion of 'shared object' 
> and 'shared library'.
>
> A shared object is a single object file that has the Shared object 
> SHROBJ flag in the XCOFF header. A shared object normally has a name of 
> the form name.o (and it is archived in the library as such).
>
> A shared library refers to an ar format archive library, where one or 
> more of the archive members is a shared object. Note that the library 
> can also contain regular, non-shared object files, which are handled in 
> the normal way by the linker. A shared library normally has a name of 
> the form libname.a, though you can also name it libname.so.
>

Wonderful! Thanks Matteo!

The only reason I thought there was a problem was the absence of the
.so file, so I am delighted to hear this. It means this is one of
those rare occasions where something looked broken, but wasn't! ;-)

Are there other systems where this can occur? (That is, a shared
library in a .a file?)

I have a intel C/Fortran compiler on a Linux system which is doing the
same thing: building --enable-shared, and seemingly working fine, but
in the end installing only a .a file.

Perhaps intel compilers also package their shared libraries in .a
files...

I know that macs use .dylib, HPs use .sl, (and I thought CYGWIN used
.lib, but I may be wrong there).

Thanks,

Ed

-- 
Ed Hartnett  -- address@hidden