Does libtool get used after building a program?

Question

I started to build xmlsec and noticed that it wouldn't recognize my libltdl library on my computer. I started hunting and it turns out that the symbolic link libltld.so -> libltdl.so.3 was missing!

The distribution I am using is "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.5 (Tikanga)"

I thought to myself... maybe this is a bug? But where? In gcc, in redhat, in xmlsec. Looking at a bug report for redhat "https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=469718" I noticed that the complaint had been made and the response was:

"This is not a bug, /usr/lib/libltdl.so is provided by libtool-ltdl-devel as it is only needed during compilation."

So the question is: Does libtool ever get used after the standard "./configure & make" process? What does Redhat mean when it says libltdl "is only needed during compilation?" but standard libtool is not?

Thanks, Chenz

Answer 1

Unversioned libraries are provided by -devel packages because they are only required at compile time of applications. In the bug you referenced, reporter needs to install libtool-ltdl-devel to compile php. After successful compilation s/he can remove the package it won't be needed anymore.