From: Godmar Back (gback@cs.utah.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 13 1999 - 11:09:15 EST
>
> On Jan 13, 1999, Godmar Back <gback@cs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
> > I looked in Runtime.c and it does indeed #define LIBRARYSUFFIX ".la"
> > What does this mean? It looks like it affects only Runtime.buildLibName.
> > So, if a user loads does a `loadLibrary("mylib")', what will kaffe look
> > for?
>
> It will look for mylib.la. Oh oh, yet another source of problems.
>
> Looking for .la is not bad in itself, since libltdl will soon be able
> to take care of inter-library dependencies and such, plain dlopen
> doesn't on most systems. However, there must be some way to let the
> user dlopen a plain library, instead of a .la one. However, library
> extensions are system-dependent, how did Kaffe guess the appropriate
> extension before libtool, I don't remember? We should certainly test
> with the system-dependent extension if the lookup for .la fails;
> libltdl does support direct dlopening (i.e., not .la shared
> libraries).
>
> > Is Raffaele right when he says that somebody who simply builds a
> > JNI native shared library is affected by our use of libtool?
>
> Currently, yes, but not as soon as we re-introduce native library
> extensions in Kaffe. Or should this be completely moved into
> libltdl. That would be even better, don't you agree?
>
I am somewhat amazed by the ease with which you remove existing
functionality from kaffe for the sake of introducing libtool,
which is obviously not as mature a tool as we would like.
I want people to be able to follow the instructions of Java's JNI
tutorial (http://www.javasoft.com/docs/books/tutorial/native1.1/TOC.html)
*by the letter* and have them be able to get their little "Hello World"
JNI library to run with Kaffe.
I bet hardly anybody has ever even heard of .la files. You cannot expect
to invent things and have people immediately accept them. If there is an
advantage in platform independence, then this advantage should be
brought to bear as an addition of functionality, not a removal with the
prospect of maybe reintroducing it.
- Godmar
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