[vlc-devel] Does VLC use .la files during runtime?

[Måns Rullgård]

Vikram Narayanan <vikram186 at gmail.com> writes:

> On 5/4/2012 1:33 AM, Måns Rullgård wrote:
>> Vikram Narayanan<vikram186 at gmail.com>  writes:
>>
>>> >  Hello Peter,
>>> >
>>> >  On 5/3/2012 11:36 PM, Peter Tap wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>
>>>> >>  Thank you for your help,
>>>> >>
>>>> >>  That is what I thought. What confused me is that "make install"
>>>> >>  copies these files into the install directory. This looks like a
>>>> >>  build bug.
>>> >
>>> >  No. I don't think it's a bug. The .la files are used during the
>>> >  linking phase. You can find many in your /usr/lib directory.
>> .la files are a madness added by libtool/automake.  They serve no useful
>> purpose whatsoever.
>
> I agree that is it's a madness caused by libtool/automake.
> But the statement "they serve no useful purpose" is subjective. I've
> had many compilation errors due to missing la files.

I have had many bizarre errors that went away when I deleted the .la files.

There are a few rare cases where libtool will indeed fail to do the
right thing if the .la files are missing, but these are not useful.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mans at mansr.com