Re: portability of -L<relative_directory_name>

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Bruno,

* Bruno Haible wrote on Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 02:51:08PM CET:
> 
> A while ago someone said that if in a build directory I have a (not yet
> installed) ../lib/libfoo.la, to link with this library I should *not* use
> 
>    libtool ... -L../lib -lfoo
> 
> but rather mention the .la file explicitly:
> 
>    libtool ... -L../lib ../lib/libfoo.la
> or
>    libtool ... ../lib/libfoo.la

You should use the last one, none of the others.

> Is it true that references to non-yet-installed libool libraries should not be
> made with -l? If so, it would be worth to document this in the libtool
> documentation. I didn't find it there.

Quoting info libtool "Linking executables":

   (1) However, you should avoid using `-L' or `-l' flags to link
against an uninstalled libtool library.  Just specify the relative path
to the `.la' file, such as `../intl/libintl.la'.  This is a design
decision to eliminate any ambiguity when linking against uninstalled
shared libraries.

This has been documented for eons.

Cheers,
Ralf