Re: Library file names

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-11-28 11:48:28

"Victor A. Wagner, Jr." <vawjr_at_[hidden]> writes:

> I notice you concentrate on the dynamic linking (i.e. I don't see any 
> static linked libraries mentioned). So why don't we just take it as given, 
> that I'm more concerned with static linking than dynamic.

With static libraries, it's trivial for the user to change the name as
neccessary, and causes no problems. Users don't need to change any of
their projects; they only need to tweak the name of the installed
library. With dynamic libraries the name is generally significant to
the loader and must be chosen as part of the link process. You can't
change the name of an .so or .dll without potentially breaking it. I
suppose we could install version-number-less copies of the static
libraries on Windows, and a version-number-less symlink on Unix, but
this does not strike me as being anything like terrible emergency that
you're making it out to be.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com