Paul Durrant writes:
> On 4/8/06, Xie Gang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I wrote a socket program and compiled it on solaris. I found it quite
> > different from linux. The gcc did not search for the socket lib
> > automatically. The -lsocket must be given.
> > I don't know why this happens.
>
> On Linux the socket calls are in (g)libc so it's not that the linux
> linker magically searches for libsocket.so - such a library simply
> does not exist on Linux. However, I do sympathise - the fact that one
> needs to add -lsocket to the linker flags trips up many an open source
> app. when building it on Solaris and it gets annoying after a while.
True, but the deeper issue is that we have at least two[1] competing
and incompatible sockets interfaces -- one is the 3SOCKET old-BSD
style family and the other is the 3XNET standards-compliant family.
In most cases, folks really want 3XNET (one example issue: this is the
only way to get ancillary data) and yet they stumble into libsocket
first. The few things 3XNET doesn't offer (*_r, r*, and ether_*
functions) are seldom needed.
[1] We have three if you count the old SunOS 4.x compatibility stuff,
which I don't.
--
James Carlson, KISS Network <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
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