How to use pkglib_LTLIBRARIES = test.la to only build *.so

Question

I'm using autotools to build a shared object.

Using pkglib_LTLIBRARIES in my Makefile.am causes a libtest.la AND libtest.so to be built.

I only want it to build/install libtest.so

Is this possible?

Answer 1

The details of generating libraries varies widely from platform to platform. For example, on OS X, your library would be called libtest.dylib rather then libtest.so. libtool is part of the autotools suite, and its job is to abstract away all the messy platform dependent details. To do this, it creates a high-level, platform independent description of the library. This is is the libtest.la file you are seeing. libtools uses this platform independent description of the library to put together the final native library.

If you are using the autotools I don't think you are going to be able to avoid generating libtest.la. I suppose you could hack your local libtool shell script to remove it at completion, but you'd just have to generate it again the next time you ran make.

I found the GNU documentation on libtool somewhat opaque. Here is a less opaque but kind of dated description.

Answer 2

You can pass --disable-static as an option to configure.