Re: Shared libraries

[steve donovan <steve.j.donovan@...>]

On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 8:59 AM, David Demelier
<demelier.david@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lua is by default built as a static library yes. But almost all distros
> provide dynamic libraries too. And on Windows it is really easy to build as
> a DLL too. I personally use a CMakeLists.txt for that purpose.

In fact, 'make mingw' builds a DLL plus exe, which is the recommended
way to do it on Windows. You can make a standalone exe with
statically-linked Lua, and that exe can export the Lua symbols (e.g.
SciTE does this).

> I completely agree with you, maybe Lua authors can add additional target to
> build dynamic libraries too?

I suppose they assume that any intelligent person can modify the
makefile to do that, it really is straightforward.

> I think Lua authors do not want to start using tools like libtool, automess
> and such because it's too much unix centric.

And to some extent, GNU-centric, in that you need to get the GNU tools
going on OS X. Whereas straightforward makefiles just work.

As for the original 'static linking is a security problem" theme, the
reality is that Lua is not regarded as critical infrastructure for the
Linux distros. So SSH fixes will get pushed up as emergencies, but not
the Lua shared libraries - I think in debian we're still at Lua 5.2.0.

steve d.