GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool

Chapter 9. Introducing GNU Libtool

Libtool takes care of all the peculiarities of creating, linking, and loading shared and static libraries across a great number of platforms, providing a uniform command-line interface to the developer. By using Libtool to manage your project libraries, you need only to concern yourself with Libtool's interface: When someone else builds your project on a platform with a different library architecture, Libtool invokes that platform's compiler and linker with the correct environment and command-line switches. It installs libraries and library-using binaries according to the conventions of the host platform, and follows that platform's rules for library versioning and library interdependencies.

Libtool enables ...