Jaromil <jaromil@???> wrote:

>> So, does anyone know if it's "hard" to use a library in a "see if
>> it's there and don't use it if it isn't" way rather than "just use
>> it and blow up if it's not there" which seems to be the norm ?
>
> it is not hard at all. in fact one can simply dlopen(3)

OK, so that's given me a clue, and top hit comes up with :
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Program-Library-HOWTO/dl-libraries.html
from that and the previous page I think I see what's needed.

As I read that, "statically defined" shared libraries are automatically opened by the system when the program is loaded - so all you need to do is tell "whatever builds it" to include that information. But to make it "soft" it needs a few lines of code ?

So not "hard", but a *little* extra work.