Re: CMake, file extensions

On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 10:59:27AM +0000, Richard Crozier wrote:
> You could do something similar to what matlab does. It uses custom suffix
> for compiled shared libraries (mex files) but with a platform specific
> extension (e.g. .mexw64 for win 64, .mexa64 for linux 64 bit etc.). Under
> the hood they are just shared libraries.

with this, i understand that in matlab-ui you do load("module"), and it
then (roughly) calls dlopen("module" + ".mexa64").

what if you wanted to dlopen just "module.so"? (would that be
useful/worth supporting?)

> The advantage of this approach is that they can be on the Maltab search path
> and easily found without mixing up with other shared libraries and different
> platforms versions can coexist.

indeed, with just .so/.dll/.dylib, we will not be able to have both
32bit and 64bit libraries in one directory... i totally see the use
case.

instead of using md.h, we should add a configure flag for that
extension, so it will properly end up in the makefiles *and* in
c_attach. then it can be anything, and also work for future whatever
os/arch/abi combinations.

thanks for sharing
felix