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Feature #758

configure: have option to say to look for external libs

Added by John Abbott over 8 years ago. Updated over 8 years ago.

Status:
In Progress
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
-
Category:
Improving
Target version:
CoCoALib-1.0
Start date:
31 Jul 2015
Due date:
% Done:

10%

Estimated time:
Spent time:
0.60 h

Description

Suggestion: let the user say ./configure --with-libgsl=search
so that a script searches for the appropriate library. Currently, if you want GSL, you have to look for it yourself, and then put in the path after --with-libgsl=.

History

#1 Updated by John Abbott over 8 years ago

When would this idea really be useful?

It makes sense really only for libraries which would normally have a system-wide installation (e.g. under /usr/local/lib/).

Perhaps it could also look in a user's subtree for a "personal installation" (but this could be quite expensive if the script uses find)

#2 Updated by John Abbott over 8 years ago

If we do adopt this idea, what syntax should be used?

./configure --with-libgsl
./configure --with-libgsl=auto
./configure --with-libgsl=search

Other suggestions?

In any case, if the user says --with-libgsl and the script cannot find it then an error should be signalled.

#3 Updated by Anna Maria Bigatti over 8 years ago

John Abbott wrote:

If we do adopt this idea, what syntax should be used?
./configure --with-libgsl=auto

This is my preference. And I think it should only look for a system-wide installation.
Does libnormaliz have a system-wide installer?
While GSL is the only one, I regard this issue as low priority.

#4 Updated by John Abbott over 8 years ago

  • Status changed from New to In Progress
  • % Done changed from 0 to 10

Christof reports having seen a form like --with-extlib=system to mean that extlib is automatically sought in the "standard system directories".

JAA's interpretation is that first an attempt is made to see whether simply adding -lextlib is enough to achieve compilation; if not then a script can search for extlib.a or extlib.so (or extlib.dylib) in the usual system directories (a list maintained manually).

There are some minor complications:
  • library name is of the form libXYZ
  • the -l option should then be -lXYZ
  • the file to look for should be libXYZ.a (or .so or .dylib)

What to do if several libraries are found? (e.g. static and dynamic ones)

Once the library have been found; the corresponding header file must also be found. Its name will presumably be XYZ.h or XYZ.H (or even XYZ.hpp?)

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