Re: Building optional shared libraries

[Steven G. Johnson]

On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Bill Moseley wrote:
> http://www.gnu.org/software/ac-archive/Installed_Packages/smr_with_build_pat
> h.html
> >(i.e. *don't* do --with-libfoo=<dir>)
> 
> Oh, so that's what I'm doing.  What's wrong with --with-libfoo? 
> 
> Actually, it seems necessary in my situation, because the library is *not*
> linked in by default.  --with-libxml2 enables it.

--with-libfoo is fine, to enable the use of an optional library; that's
what it's there for.  What I was recommending against was
--with-libfoo=<dir>, to simultaneously specify a search directory.

Some reasons I can think of for avoiding --with-libfoo=<dir> are:

* It forces the user to learn a different syntax for every program and
package, where as CPPFLAGS/LDFLAGS is general.

* It's unclear how to specify separate header and library search paths.

* In programs that use multiplie librares, the user may end up
specifying the same search path multiple times, versus once with
CPPFLAGS/LDFLAGS.

* --without-libfoo doesn't work as expected.

Steven

PS. For programs with a foo-config program, the user should instead make
sure that foo-config is in the PATH (./configure PATH="/foo/bin:$PATH"),
but the principle is the same.