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

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

On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Alan W. Irwin wrote:

> 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.)

I investigated this further and python and tclsh both refuse to load the
respective static libraries plplotcmodule.a and libplplottcltk.a. The error
message was something about wrong ELF header.  So this is a fundamental
issue not a configuration issue.  octave is probably a similar case.
mkoctfile does build a shared wrapper library plplot_octave.oct, but that
wrapper is statically linked to libplplot, and that may be the fundamental
source of the trouble in that case.

Anyhow, we are stuck with the fact that static libraries have limitations
for the scripting language front ends that attempt to load them as
extensions.  However, it is nice to know we can build and use them for
compiled language front ends for those platforms where shared libraries
cannot be built.

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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