Default target install tags for shared and static libraries.

[jwidauer]

Hi all,

The meson docs describe that the default tag for a static library is devel and for any other kind of "normal" target (executables, shared libraries, etc.) is runtime.
This can also be seen in the implementation here.

This leads to the behavior that when I run meson install --tags devel, I won't actually install any of the shared libraries that are targets in my project.

Is there a particular reason for this behavior? The reason why I believe shared libraries should be tagged both devel and runtime, is that they are required both when using the library for development, as well as during runtime.
Would this be a worthwhile change to make?

[xclaesse]

The intended use-case is for packaging systems that typically will split libfoo and libfoo-dev where the latter depends on the former. If you want to install both runtime and devel files, simply use meson install --tags runtime,devel or just don't give --tags argument to install everything.

[jwidauer]

Ah, I see! That makes a lot more sense! Thanks for the quick reply!