Subject: Bug#3321: libgdbm.so version number...

From: "Arup Mukherjee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 21:56:50 -0400

Package: libgdbm1
Version: 1.7.3-11

Hi, 
	I believe that the shared library exported by this package
(libgdbm.so.1.7.3) is basically the same thing that other linux
distributions (slackware and redhat in particular) choose to ship as
libgdm.so.2.0.0 ... Perhaps Debian too should do this? In the current
state, dynamically linked programs compiled under other distributions
look for a libgdbm.so.2 under debian and fail because they can't find
it. 

Thanks, 

-Arup

---

From: Mark Eichin <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Jun 1996 01:29:20 -0400

could you give me more information on this? (I'm the current libgdbm
maintainer.) Calling it libgdbm.so.2.0 would really seem like a
mistake, since after all, libgdbm itself is only at 1.7.3... but I can
probably put in a compatibility link if there's enough evidence for it
(namely, programs which need it that aren't debian packages - since
those can all be fixed ;-)

---

From: "Arup Mukherjee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 02:21:36 -0400

> mistake, since after all, libgdbm itself is only at 1.7.3... but I can

Well, it appears that the shared lib version number of libgdbm was
bumped to 2.0 at some point in the development of libc 5.2 ... see

   http://imageek.york.cuny.edu/pub/sunsite/HJL/release.libc-5.2.3
and 
   http://sunsite.kth.se/Linux/GCC/ChangeLog

I can't pretend to understand the reasoning behind this, but both
slackware and redhat appear to have gone along with it. If debian
doesn't have it, it's effectively going to lose binary compatibility
for programs using gdbm that were compiled on slackware or redhat. 

I guess the affected binaries fall into two groups: 

	(1) precompiled binary distributions of software. An altavista
search suggests that some releases of sendmail, NCSA httpd, and
kerberos at least are dynamically linked against a libgdbm.so.2.0

	(2) stuff compiled by endusers before they moved to debian. 

I hit category #2 (quite hard, since in my case it was a kerberized
/bin/login that wouldn't work!). The problem is worsened by the fact
that most people are not likely to realize that the missing 2.0.0 is
in fact the 1.7.3 lib they already have; I certainly didn't. 

So: I guess I'm suggesting an extra symlink just to maintain
compatibility with the other major linux distributions. Perhaps it
would be worth contacting H. J. Lu to find out the rationale for the
version number change. (He's the author of the info in both of the
URLs above.) I guess libgdbm was separated from the libc distribution
sometime after this version # change, but it would appear that most
people haven't dropped the version # back down after the split.

Thanks, 

-Arup

---

From: [email-masked] (J.H.M.Dassen)
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 11:04:43 +0200 (MDT)

> look for a libgdbm.so.2 under debian and fail because they can't find

That is a bug in their distributions.
At http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jo95004/liblist.html Daniel Barlow 
(maintainer of GCC-HOWTO and such) maintains the List of Libraries,
which is intended to get .so names consistent accross distributions.

It's entry for gdbm is:
gdbm 

    Description: The GNU dbm library 
    Author/Maintainer: 
    Keeper of the soname: Christopher Wiles <[email-masked]> 
    Source from: ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu 
    Binaries from: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/libs 
    Filename: libgdbm.so.1.7.3 soname: libgdbm.so.1 
    Building as a shared library: This patch, also included in the binary 
      distribution. 
    Notes: 
    More information: 

Greetings,
Ray
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