I am currently developing/hacking an image analyzing/transforming tool. The filters therein will be loaded at runtime using dlopen&co.
My question is where do *nix tools usually put plugins (*.so files) when installed?
bin/program
lib/program/plugins/thisandthat.so
maybe?
Secondly how do I use it and where do I put it during development without installing it. (this is probably the tricky part)
I want to avoid shell-scripts if possible.
thanks in regard Ronny
Usually /usr/lib/programmname should be a good spot
During development I'd create a command line paramter to specify the plugin search path and just leave the plugins in the build-dir for example.
The layout seems sensible. You can, for instance, look in current directory, look up environment variable or command line switch during development. It depends on the details of your development environment and workflow.
A good guide for choosing is Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. Most Linux distribuitions use this standard.
Here is a very short summary.
Place application binary in: /usr/bin/progname, /usr/local/bin/progname or /opt/progname
Place plugins or library files in: /usr/lib/progname, /usr/local/lib/progname or /opt/progname/lib
Place host configuration for the application in: /etc/progname or /etc/opt/progname
Place user configuration in: $HOME/.progname
Place application manual page in: /usr/shar/man/man1/
There is separate hierachy for /var. As an example use /var/log/progname for logging.
In responce to caf's comment. I find it very usefull to choose target directory at compile time. Using a $PREFIX also makes it easy to separate devellopment build's from shippment. Most use /usr/progname, /usr/lib/progname and /etc/progname