>> Roberto Gordo Saez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Marcelo E. Magallon wrote: > > A wild guess: I don't know about the files named lib*.la, but the other > > ones could be plug-ins. ltdl opens the .la file to find out the actual > > Yes, you are right, but... why does a plugin need both .so and .la files?
Because when you use ltdl's dlopen replacement, the function looks for the .la file instead of the .so file. Let me rephrase: the plug-in filename can be whatever you want (no dlopen-wanabe implementation that I've seen is *that* stupid), but libtool produces filanames named after the platform's own conventions. So, under Linux you get libfoo.so and under HP/UX you get libfoo.sl. *That* information is stored in the .la file. You pass the .la filename to dl_open, which opens it, searches for the actual shared object filename and does whatever voodoo your platform requires in order to dlopen a file. Morale: if the .la file is there for this purpose (plug-ins), it shouldn't be in /usr/lib in the first place (and neither should the other libfoo.so* files). If the .la file is just a regular libtool-feels-all-cozy-when-it-finds-it .la file, it should be in the -dev package. -- Marcelo | It wasn't blood in general he couldn't stand the sight [EMAIL PROTECTED] | of, it was just his blood in particular that was so | upsetting. | -- (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery)