Re: Failure to use -lnsl on Solaris with AC_CHECK_LIB

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005, Russ Allbery wrote:

> Warren Young <address@hidden> writes:
> > Russ Allbery wrote:
>
> > > Well, Autoconf has never handled this automatically for anyone else.  :)
>
> > I don't do any specific checks for libnsl currently, yet it gets linked
> > automatically when build the program on Linux, at least.
>
> Linux does shared library dependencies properly, so libraries can declare
> dependencies on other shared libraries themselves if linked properly.
> Unfortunately, not all platforms are as kind.

To make things more clear, automatic features in Linux may mask 
problems which become real problems on other systems, or which crop up 
if an optional library is not installed.  For example, if you 
application needs networking, and an existing optional library also 
needs networking, then that existing library may draw in the libraries 
that your application also needs.  If that optional library is not 
present, then your application may fail to link.

Unfortunately, there is no substitute for testing on a variety of 
platforms.

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/