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{{short description|Field of data in a shared object file}}
{{more citations needed|date=July 2014}}
{{lowercase}}
In [[Unix]] and [[Unix-like]] operating systems, a '''soname''' is a field of data in a [[shared object]] file.<ref>{{cite web
| url=https://tldp.org/HOWTO/Program-Library-HOWTO/shared-libraries.html#AEN46
| title=Program Library HOWTO
| first=David
| last=Wheeler
| date=2003-04-11
| publisher=[[tldp.org]]
| access-date=2021-01-04}}</ref> The soname is a [[string (computer science)|string]], which is used as a "logical name" describing the functionality of the object. Typically, that name is equal to the [[filename]] of the library, or to a prefix thereof, e.g. <code>libc.so.6</code>.

==Name==
The soname is often used to provide version backwards-compatibility information.<ref>{{cite web
| url=http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Library-related_Commands_and_Files#soname
| title=Library-related Commands and Files: soname
| first=Thorsten
| last=Staerk
| date=2011-03-25
| publisher=[[LinuxQuestions.org]]
| access-date=2018-02-07}}</ref> For instance, if versions 1.0 through 1.9 of the shared library <code>libx</code> provide identical interfaces, they would all have the same soname, e.g. <code>libx.so.1</code>. If the system only includes version 1.3 of that shared object, with filename <code>libx.so.1.3</code>, the soname field of the shared object tells the system that it can be used to fill the dependency for a binary which was originally compiled using version 1.2.<ref>{{cite web
| url=https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-shobj/
| title=Shared objects for the object disoriented: How to write dynamically loadable libraries
| first=Ashish
| last=Bansal
| date=2001-04-01
| publisher=[[IBM DeveloperWorks]]
| access-date=2018-02-07}}</ref>

If the [[application binary interface]] (ABI) of a library changes in a [[backward-incompatible]] way, the soname would be incremented, e.g. from <code>libX.so.5</code> to <code>libX.so.6</code>.

The [[GNU linker]] uses the <code>-h''name''</code> or <code>-soname=''name''</code> to specify the library name field. Internally, the linker will create a <code>DT_SONAME</code> field and populate it with <code>''name''</code>.

Given any shared object file, one can use the following command to get the information from within the library file using [[objdump]]:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ objdump -p libx.so.1.3 | grep SONAME
SONAME libx.so.1
</syntaxhighlight>

==See also==
* [[Application programming interface]] (API)
* [[Linux]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Unix]]
[[Category:Linux]]

Soname - Revision history

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wikipedia>Cedar101: /* Name */ lang="console"