Re: libgtop versioning

[Martin Baulig <martin home-of-linux org>]

Ronald de Man <deman@win.tue.nl> writes:

> Hello,
> 
> Trying to update libgtop/gtop from CVS I ran into a few problems.
> The reason turned out to be the following:
> 
> lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           16 Jul 26 21:49 /usr/local/lib/libgtop.so -> libgtop.so.0.0.0*
> lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           16 Jul 26 21:49 /usr/local/lib/libgtop.so.0 -> libgtop.so.0.0.8*
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        31465 Jul 26 21:49 /usr/local/lib/libgtop.so.0.0.0*
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        28821 Feb 16 23:49 /usr/local/lib/libgtop.so.0.0.8*
> lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           16 Apr 25 19:55 /usr/local/lib/libgtop.so.2 -> libgtop.so.2.0.0*
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root        31305 Apr 25 19:55 /usr/local/lib/libgtop.so.2.0.0*
> 
> Ok, so I could have kept my system a bit cleaner by removing old
> libraries, but what is more important is the way these libraries
> are numbered:
> 
> Feb 16	0.0.8
> Apr 25	2.0.0
> Jul 26	0.0.0
> 
> Why is that? No wonder I'm having problems!
> 
> I've had this happen one time earlier, also with libgtop.

This is what is called libtool versioning (info:libtool#Libtool_versioning).
It allows you for instance to have different versions of the same library
installed and each program correctly picking the correct version.

The problem is of cause a bit "confusion" with library names.

-- 
Martin Baulig - martin@home-of-linux.org - http://www.home-of-linux.org