Catalyst should use the .dylib file extension where appropriate for macOS builds

[joeycarter]

Catalyst uses the .so file extension for dynamic libraries on macOS in a few places (see below). We should rename these libraries so that they use the standard .dylib extension.

A few examples where we use the .so file extension (this is not necessarily an exhaustive list):

catalyst/setup.py

Lines 241 to 254 in 57bc011

	class CustomBuildExtMacos(UnifiedBuildExt):
	"""Custom build extension class for macOS platforms
	In addition to the work performed by the base class UnifiedBuildExt, this
	class also changes the LC_ID_DYLIB that is otherwise constant and equal to
	where the shared library was created.
	"""
	def run(self):
	# Run the original build_ext command
	super().run()
	# Construct library name based on ext suffix (contains python version, architecture and .so)
	library_name = "libcustom_calls.so"

catalyst/runtime/lib/registry/CMakeLists.txt

Line 43 in 57bc011

set_target_properties(catalyst_callback_registry PROPERTIES SUFFIX ".so")

catalyst/frontend/catalyst/utils/CMakeLists.txt

Line 46 in 57bc011

set_target_properties(wrapper PROPERTIES SUFFIX ".so")

Be sure to update the relevant Makefile commands and build scripts as well, for example:

catalyst/Makefile

Lines 215 to 216 in 57bc011

	clean-frontend:
	find frontend/catalyst -name "*.so" -exec rm -v {} +

[dime10]

What about renaming the .dylibs to .so instead? 😅 Would make the handling of our libraries very uniform

[joeycarter]

@mlxd recommended this, since .dylib is the conventional file extension for dynamic libraries on macOS. I gather that on macOS there is a subtle difference between shared objects (which get the .so extension by convention) and dynamic libraries (which get the .dylib extension). If I understand correctly, we're creating dynamic libraries in our macOS builds, but giving some of them the .so file extension, so it's a slight misnomer. I think the argument for uniformity is a valid one, especially since there don't appear to be any issues with our macOS wheels shipped with .so files, so happy to discuss more.