libtool's reordering of libraries

[Peter Fuller]

Hello all,

  I am having an issue at my workplace that I've resolved down to  
libtool behavior.   Unfortunately, because of the nature of the work
I cannot access anything from there and so can't paste any of the  
actual lines, but will describe it here.

   I using an open source network protocol analysis package and have  
incorporated some mysql calls to database some results
directly from within the code.  I'm using the autotools suite and  
have updated it to check for the existence of mysql.  I'm using an
non-RPM package of mysql which statically links libz for compression  
of database updates/requests, even though we do not use
it that way.  The protocol analyzer also uses libz and the ordering  
of the -l arguments being passed to libtool is moving -lz such that
it comes after -lmysqlclient.  This is causing one symbol in the  
protocol analyzer (specifically gzseek) to resolve/bind to mysqlclient.
The version of libz within mysqlclient is not compatible with what  
the analyzer expects and it now fails to open any files properly.

  I've managed through sheer trickery to force -lz to appear before - 
lmyslclient and proven that in this order everything works (although  
it may break
the compresssion of DB updates/requests which, again, I don't care  
about).

   I'm now looking for a more portable/elegant solution and am  
hoping there is some option in libtool (I am using version 1.5.4)  to  
tell it
what the proper order of these libraries are?  Or, at least, that -lz  
should *precede* -lmysqlclient ?

rkm