What does -devel mean when installing a library?

Question

I'm reading some readmes and they contain some packages with "-devel", and some without. What is the difference?

sudo yum install gcc

(vs)

sudo yum install pcre-devel

What would happen if I installed "sudo yum install pcre" instead?

Answer 1

Devel libraries typically contain development header and debug resources that are not necessary for the end-user runtime. These headers and debug resources are used for the purpose of developing applications based on the library; not just running applications that require the library. If you install the package without -devel, it only installs the end-user runtime, and not the development headers and debug symbols.