[IronPython] Anyone know what DLLs is called on Unix?

[Miguel de Icaza]

Hello,

> Ok, I buy that argument...  I'll just use DLLs.  Thanks for the responses.

We use .dll extensions for managed libraries, but the actual extension
for a shared library that contains native code is operating system
specific.

We usually just reference libraries like this:

	[DllImport ("native")]

Which maps to libnative.EXT where EXT is an operating system specific
extension (on Linux and Solaris its ".so", on OSX its ".dylib", "sl" for
HP-UX and ".a" for AIX).

-- You can stop reading here -- 

An added feature is that Unix typically versions libraries, the
"libnative.so" library for example is typically a link to the latest
version released.   It usually points to libnative.so.MAJOR.MINOR, like:
libc.so.6.1 for example.

By sticking to the basename "native" in this case, you can instruct Mono
to remap later through the .config file (or the system-wide config file)
the library to a proper version.

Miguel.