Re: library search test fails, please help

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Alejandro, all,

I'm late to the long thread this post started:

* aaragon wrote on Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 10:23:33PM CET:
> I want to check for a particular static library that I created.
> Thus, I put the following in the configure.ac file
> 
> AC_CHECK_LIB([cpputils], [flip],,[AC_MSG_ERROR(library cpputils not found)],,)
[...]

Rather than addressing bits here and there, I'd like to add a note that
I didn't find mentioned, and summarize what I see as useful TODO items,
mentioned by others in this thread:

- AC_CHECK_LIB allows to check for static and shared libraries; for the
former, the options fifth argument OTHER-LIBRARIES becomes (more)
important, for libraries that are not self-contained.  The argument
allows to specify libraries that may also need to be linked in; see
the manual for details:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/html_node/Libraries.html>

- AC_CHECK_LIB does not easily lend itself to non-C linkage or different
calling convention, libraries with many dependencies (that are typically
created with help of other tools like libtool and pkg-config); for all
of these, Autoconf does not currently provide adequate and as easy to
use replacement macros.  There are macros to come to help: e.g., the
havelib module of gnulib, the Autoconf Macro Archive has lots of C++
specific macros, and pkg-config has macros to query itself.  All of this
could be documented better in the Autoconf manual, and some of it could
even be integrated into Autoconf.  I do not know whether there exist
ready to use macros for testing functions with different calling
conventions.

Cheers,
Ralf