[Plplot-devel] Static library build works with the new configuration scheme

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

If you use the ./configure option, --disable-shared, then the building of
shared libraries is dropped by the new configure system, and you get static
libraries only.  (For completeness and symmetry I should mention there is an
option, --disable-static to give you shared libraries only.)

I have just tested those static libraries on Linux.  There is one name clash
in x19c.c that I just fixed.  Also, the octave and python interfaces don't
work with static libraries.  (I am not sure whether this is expected or not
since apparently you can use dlopen to open a static library, and that is
what those front ends presumably use to load their wrapper libraries.) But
currently I found that the c, c++, fortran, and tcl interfaces (using pltcl)
do work with static libraries if you don't mind huge executables. To take
one example, with shared libraries x01c is 13.6 K in size.  With static
libraries it is 1MB (!) in size.

So it is nice to know we have working static libraries accessible to us from
the new configuration approach, but because of the size issue it is probably
best to avoid them unless you absolutely need them.

Alan

email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902	FAX: 250-721-7715
snail-mail:
Dr. Alan W. Irwin
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3055,
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8W 3P6
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