What causes a library (.so) to be copied to devel/lib

edit

Hi guys,

I've got a project comprising approximately 30 packages. Some of these packages define libraries in the CMakeLists, using the add_library and target_link_libraries functions. I am wondering why only some of these packages create shared objects in devel/lib while others aren't.

Example: I've got a package (for simplicity say package "a") which defines a library. This package is referenced as <runtime_dep> by another package (b). Sadly, when running catkin build, no shared object is copied to devel/lib, resulting in runtime failure in node b.

EDIT: Thank you for your answers, but that doesn't seem to be what I am looking for.

I am using catkin_tools to build my project. I configure my build with catkin config --no-install, hence no install targets are executed.

Still, catkin puts some libraries in devel/lib. If I look at the $LD_LIBRARY_PATH after the build, I can see that the devel/lib directory is included there. My problem is that I don't know which statement causes a defined library to be copied there at build time.

All packages define the libraries using add_library, target_link_libraries and catkin_package(... LIBRARIES <xyz>), still some of them are not copied to devel/lib

Package definition of a package which doesn't create a shared object in devel/lib:

... 
add_library(m_controllers    
     src/general.cpp    
     src/passthrough.cpp )

add_dependencies(m_controllers ${catkin_EXPORTED_TARGETS}) 
target_link_libraries(m_controllers ${catkin_LIBRARIES})

catkin_package(    
CATKIN_DEPENDS
....    
INCLUDE_DIRS include    
LIBRARIES m_controllers 
) 
...