Should i rebuild a dependent lib after system update?

Question

I have some fear when i update my system libraries. For example, i made make && make install for a custom lib (i.e. libhell, there is no this library in repo) that depends on libssl-dev>0.5. Then apt offers me to update libssl-dev. Should i rebuild libhell against new libssl-dev?

Always it worked fine after updates and without rebuilds, but what about binary safety? All the time i build own packages on bin-dist systems i feel i'm doing something wrong...

Answer 1

This is why package systems exist.

If your libhell binary library is dynamic library (that is a libhell.so shared object, with position independent code) and if the dependency libssl-dev didn't change its API (e.g. if its version number didn't change), then you don't need to recompile and reinstall your libhell.

If you feel that your libhell depends upon a changed feature (or data) of libssl-dev then you should recompile it.

Better recompile your libhell more often than needed.

See also the Program Library Howto