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Libtool

5.5 Static-only libraries

When you are developing a package, it is often worthwhile to configure your package with the `--disable-shared' flag, or to override the defaults for AC_PROG_LIBTOOL by using the AC_DISABLE_SHARED Autoconf macro (see section The AC_PROG_LIBTOOL macro). This prevents libtool from building shared libraries, which has several advantages:

• compilation is twice as fast, which can speed up your development cycle,

• debugging is easier because you don't need to deal with any complexities added by shared libraries, and

• you can see how libtool behaves on static-only platforms.

You may want to put a small note in your package `README' to let other developers know that `--disable-shared' can save them time. The following example note is taken from the GIMP(5) distribution `README':

The GIMP uses GNU Libtool in order to build shared libraries on a variety of systems. While this is very nice for making usable binaries, it can be a pain when trying to debug a program. For that reason, compilation of shared libraries can be turned off by specifying the `--disable-shared' option to `configure'.