[DebianGIS-dev] libgdal.so in libgdal1-1.4.0 package

[Francesco P. Lovergine]

On Sat, Jan 05, 2008 at 11:22:39AM +0100, Emmanuel Christophe wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> First, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this. If not,
> please redirect me to a more appropriate location.
> 
> I'm writing about the libgdal1-1.4.0 and libgdal1-dev packages for debian:
> - when trying to compile a program which uses gdal with cmake it
> failed when linking as cmake is looking for libgdal.so (as it is the
> name of the library on all other plateforms). However, the library
> provided by the package is named libgdal1.4.0.so.
> 
> In similar situations, most debian packages add a simlink with a
> generic name to the library file. Is there a reason for not creating
> this simlink with the libgdal1-1.4.0 package?
> 

It is a long history. We use a versioned name to avoid breakages
due to C++ ABI past changes from one release to another. 
You (or your cmake configuration) are anyway using the wrong 
style of linking: 

gdal-config --libs 

provides all that you need to be distro independent at source level. 

-- 
Francesco P. Lovergine