Recommended way to check for a library

[Sylvain Beucler]

Hi,

I'd like to look for a library that can be enabled or disabled in
configure.ac.

I was about to use AC_ARG_WITH, then use AC_CHECK_LIB, then possibly
use a variant that takes an additional search path provided by the
--with-mylib parameter. (or is it recommended to set CFLAGS and
LDFLAGS instead?)

I'm wondering if there's something that already does the job. It would
add a new --with argument, look for the library in standard paths +
additional path provided with --with-mylib=/path, and support
--without too to disable the library support.

CHECK_ZLIB from zlib.m4 does this, but I'm looking for a more generic
way to do it (rather than copy/paste and adapt 70 lines of M4).

I had a look at the gnulib 'havelib' module but I can't understand how
to use it :/

Any suggestions? :)

-- 
Sylvain