The library linter is a Snapcraft linter that is used to verify whether any ELF file dependencies, typically libraries, are missing from a snap. It also verifies if any libraries are included in a snap but are not used.
See Disabling linters for details on how to stop this linter running.
How the linter helps
If a snapped application depends on libraries neither provided by the base system, nor included as a dependency, the snap package may execute in an incorrect or unpredictable way. The library linter issues a warning if a missing dependency is detected.
Snap package size can be reduced by removing extra libraries that are not used by the applications in the snap. The library linter issues a warning if unused libraries are detected.
Linter warnings
The library linter will issue a warning if:
- ELF dependencies are detected as missing from the snap package.
- Libraries not used by an ELF file in the snap package are detected.
Example
The example below shows two missing libraries (libcaca and libslang) and one unused library (libpng16).
Running linter: library
Lint warnings:
- library: my-app: missing dependency 'libcaca.so.0'.
- library: my-app: missing dependency 'libslang.so.2'.
- library: libpng16.so.16: unused library 'usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng16.so.16.37.0'.
Addressing issues
To address library linter issues, packages containing any missing libraries need to be added to the list of stage-packages. Unused libraries can be removed from stage-packages. See Build and staging dependencies for further details.