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How can I create the DCMTK libraries as shared objects (.so-files) which are dynamically loaded when the DCMTK applications are started?

This depends on your C++ compiler and operating system. When building shared objects containing C++ code, special handling for templates and constructors/destructors of global variables is required. Therefore, on most systems the shared object must be created with the C++ compiler, not with "ld". If you are using gcc on a platform where the "-shared" flag is supported, the following steps will create a "dynamic" DCMTK:

1. run rootconf and configure (see the INSTALL file).
2. edit the file 'config/Makefile.def' to include the following settings:
   
   Code:
   CFLAGS= -fPIC -O2
   CXXFLAGS= -fPIC -O2
   AR= gcc
   ARFLAGS= -shared -o
   LIBEXT= so
   RANLIB= :
3. build and install the toolkit with "make", "make install" and "make install-lib".
4. make sure that the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH contains the directory where the DCMTK shared objects are installed.

Note: For Mac OS X, "-shared" should be replaced by "-dynamiclib" in step 2.