On 3 May 2010, at 23:09, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: > On Mon, 3 May 2010, Matěj Týč wrote: >>> .... >> >> If I have understood correctly, the whole LTversion stuff has only one >> purpose - to inform users what have they installed. > > More specifically, it provides libtool with the information needed to produce > a suitably numbered library to satisfy a purpose. As you say, libtool does > not provide control over which versions of libraries are consumed in a link > since only the current version in the linker search path, or the version > indicated by a .la file, gets used.
Almost certainly (assuming you don't have a very customized installation), even though you might have several old versions of a library to support the applications you linked against it, you still have only one set of header files at any given time, and they will describe the API of the newest version of the library they pertain to. And that is the library you want the compiler driver to find when it builds new software on your system, and the one you want the runtime linker to find next year when you've installed a newer version of that library, and replaced the headers with the ones that describe the API of that version. Libtool is trying to make this happen automatically on as many systems as it can, as long as the people who develop and/or package libraries for your system maintain the libtool version numbers according to the rules in the Libtool manual. Cheers, -- Gary V. Vaughan (g...@gnu.org) _______________________________________________ http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/libtool