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To: Curt Sampson <cjs@portal.ca>
cc: John Polstra <jdp@polstra.com>, Warner Losh <imp@village.org>,
        freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 14 May 1997 03:14:23 MST."
             <Pine.NEB.3.93.970514030426.408L-100000@gnostic.cynic.net> 
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 18:51:15 +0800
From: Peter Wemm <peter@spinner.DIALix.COM>
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Curt Sampson wrote:
> > I just wanted to know if it was complete 
> > (ie: fully functional with no missing parts, eg, 'ar' support).
> 
> Ar support works, yes; we use it for static libraries.
> 
> As I said, we have systems that run on ELF and nothing else, which
> to me means that pretty much all support is there. If you have any
> particular queries, I'm happy to answer them.

Thanks..   I think I've found out what I was after now though..

> > Does it 
> > use elf-style shared libray versioning (ie: symlinks and internal names) 
> > or does it use a runtime ld.so.cache major.minor[.micro] a.out style 
> > system?
> 
> It uses the elf-style system. However, there was some discussion
> about how to deal with the semantics of using different versions
> of the library, since the a.out system has different semantics from
> the regular ELF system in terms of what it does if the desired
> version is not available. Getting ELF to emulate this was looking
> like a real PITA. I don't remember off-hand all the details of the
> problem or the eventual result, however.

I just had a rummage around, I can see the symlink stuff in bsd.lib.mk 
now, so I guess that answers my question.. It's using -soname with the 
libxx.so.major, with a symlink pointing to the current minor version.
It looks like the pmax did a -soname of libxx.so.major.minor, but that 
wouldn't automatically find the highest minor version.  Yes, it's a thorny 
problem..

> cjs

Cheers,
-Peter