7.3.6 Libtool Modules

These are libtool libraries meant to be dlopened. They are indicated to libtool by passing -module at link-time.

pkglib_LTLIBRARIES = mymodule.la
mymodule_la_SOURCES = doit.c
mymodule_la_LDFLAGS = -module

Ordinarily, Automake requires that a library’s name starts with ‘lib’. However, when building a dynamically loadable module you might wish to use a "nonstandard" name. Automake will not complain about such nonstandard name if it knows the library being built is a libtool module, i.e., if ‘-module’ explicitly appears in the library’s _LDFLAGS variable (or in the common AM_LDFLAGS variable when no per-library _LDFLAGS variable is defined).

As always, AC_SUBST variables are black boxes to Automake since their values are not yet known when automake is run. Therefore if -module is set via such a variable, Automake cannot notice it and will proceed as if the library was an ordinary libtool library, with strict naming.

If ‘mymodule_la_SOURCES’ is not specified, then it defaults to the single file mymodule.c (see Default _SOURCES).