GNU Libtool *********** 1. Introduction =============== This is GNU Libtool, a generic library support script. Libtool hides the complexity of using shared libraries behind a consistent, portable interface. To use libtool, add the new generic library building commands to your Makefile, Makefile.in, or Makefile.am. See the documentation for details. Libtool's home page is: http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/libtool.html See the file NEWS for a description of recent changes to libtool. See the file INSTALL for instructions on how to build and install libtool. See the info node (libtool)Tested Platforms. (or the file doc/PLATFORMS) for a list of platforms that libtool supports. 2. Reporting Bugs ================= If you have any suggestions or bug reports, or you wish to port libtool to a new platform, please send electronic mail to the libtool mailing list or bug reports to . Be sure to send us your information from the end of the help message given by `./libtool --help'. 3. The Test Suites ================== Libtool comes with two integrated sets of tests to check that your build is sane. You can run both test suites like this: make check TESTSUITEFLAGS=-V make check-local The tests of the old test suite run in groups in the various demo subdirectories, so if one of the tests early in a group FAILs, the rest of the tests in that group will be SKIPped. If you see a FAIL further into a group, even if a test with the same name PASSes in another test group, you need to take note of the name of the first test in the group if you want to rerun the group with FAILures to get verbose output. To run a test group of the old test suite in isolation (say, you think you have fixed a bug, but don't want to rerun the entire suite), you can do it like this: make check TESTS='cdemo-static.test cdemo-make.test cdemo-exec.test' \ TESTSUITEFLAGS=-V Providing that you have a FAIL from the most recent group from a particular demo directory (like the cdemo-static.test group above), you can explore the state of the directory to help with debugging. If you wish to report a test group failure to the libtool list, you need to send the verbose output of the FAILing group, along with the information from the end of `$(top_builddir)/libtool --help' to the bug report mailing list, with a subject line that includes the string `[TEST FAILURE]'. From a Bourne compatible shell, you can generate verbose test output like this: VERBOSE=yes make check \ TESTS='cdemo-static.test cdemo-make.test cdemo-exec.test' \ TESTSUITEFLAGS=-V | tee cdemo-static-group.log In order to enable debug shell tracing, use VERBOSE=debug instead of VERBOSE=yes. In the long run, Libtool will move to using only the new, Autotest-driven testsuite. Its usage is documented in info Autoconf 'testsuite Invocation' but simple help may also be obtained through make check-local TESTSUITEFLAGS='--help' For verbose output, add the flag `-v', for running only a subset of the independent tests, merely specify them by number or by keyword, both of which are displayed with the `--list' flag. If you wish to report test failures to the libtool list, you need to send the file `tests/testsuite.log' to the bug report mailing list, . 4. Version Numbering ==================== People have complained that they find the version numbering scheme under which libtool is released confusing... so we've changed it! It works like this: . Releases with a less than 1 were not yet feature complete. Releases with a of 1 used the old numbering scheme that everyone disliked so much. Releases with a of 2 us the new scheme described here. If libtool ever undergoes a major rewrite or substantial restructuring, the will be incremented again. If we make a patch release to fix bugs in a stable release, we use a third number, so: .. Version numbers are chosen to make it easy for users to decide two things: Q: How `developed' is this release? A: The higher the number, the better! Q: How `stable' is this release? A: - If the is even, it is a stable release, `2.0'. - If the is odd, it is a development version with new features compared to the last stable release, `2.1a'. - If it has an `odd'[1] letter after the version number, it is a snapshot direct from CVS, `2.1a'. - If it has an `even'[1] letter after the version number, it is an alpha quality release, `2.1b'. - If it has three numbers in the version, it is a patch release, fixing bugs from the stable release (with no new features), `2.0.1'. [1] We always increment the letter in the repository before *and* after making a release tarball. This means that "odd" letters (a,c,e,g...) only exist in the repository, and "even" letters are used instantaneously for an alpha release. Since the odd lettered version numbers cover many states of the tree, we also qualify them by adding the cvs version of the ChangeLog: $ libtool --version ltmain.sh (GNU libtool 1.1603 2004/09/12 22:02:07) 2.1a Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. For more details about version numbers, see: http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/contribute.html -- Copyright (C) 2004, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc. The canonical source of this file is maintained with the GNU Libtool package. Report bugs to bug-libtool@gnu.org. GNU Libtool is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. As a special exception to the GNU General Public License, if you distribute this file as part of a program or library that is built using GNU libtool, you may include it under the same distribution terms that you use for the rest of that program. GNU Libtool is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with GNU Libtool; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA Local Variables: mode: text fill-column: 72 End: vim:tw=72