shared libraries

Every shared library has a soname and a real name

A soname apparently is lib${LIBNAME}${API_VERSION}.so.${MAJOR_VERSION}. Usually, ${API_VERSION} is empty. So, it becomes something like libTQ84.so.2.

$MAJOR_VERSION is incremented when the library's interface changes.

The real name is ${SONAME}.${MINOR_VERSION}.${RELEASE_NUMBER}. The name is the name of the file that contains the actual code of the library.

Shared libraries are installed, by standard, in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib.

Creating a shared and static library with the gnu compiler (gcc)

The ctypes Python standard library makes it possible to call shared libraries from Python.