You can compile Kpathsea as a shared library on a few systems, by specifying the option `--enable-shared' when you run `configure'.
The main advantage in doing this is that the executables can then share the code, thus decreasing memory and disk space requirements.
On some systems, you can record the location of shared libraries in a
binary, usually by giving certain options to the linker. Then
individual users do not need to set their system's environment variable
(e.g., LD_LIBRARY_PATH) to find shared libraries. If you want to
do this, you will need to add the necessary options to LDFLAGS
yourself; for example, on Solaris, include something like
`-R${prefix}/lib'. (Unfortunately, making this happen by default
is very difficult, because of interactions with an existing installed
shared library.)
Currently, shared library support is implemented only on SunOS 4 (Solaris 1) and SunOS 5 (Solaris 2). If you're interested and willing in adding support for other systems, please see the `configure' mode in the `klibtool' script, especially the host-specific case statement around line 250.
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