Lib²Info

Enable self-describing libraries with a single command.

What is Lib²Info?

Lib²Info (or liblibinfo) is a small addition to CMake to turn your shared libraries into stand-alone executables that still can be dynamically linked. It's small and can be copied into an existing project.

Dependencies

In order to use Lib²Info, you need to use CMake. Also, only GCC is currently supported. While it might work with Clang, that hasn't been tested yet.

Usage

Add liblibinfo.cmake and liblibinfo.c.in to your project, include(...) the .cmake file and then use the add_libinfo(TARGET) function on a shared library:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)
project(libgen
  VERSION 1.0.0
  LANGUAGES C)

include("liblibinfo.cmake")

add_library(foo SHARED foo.c)
add_libinfo(foo)

How does it work?

Shared libraries on Linux systems are ELF files. With an appropriate entry in the .interp section and a proper entry point it's possible to run them. The add_libinfo call prepares an additional source file with a banner, entry point implementation and interpreter section. It also adjust the linker flags to configure the entry point.