Linking to libraries in the current directory

Hi,

I'm developing an application that hosts the Mono runtime on linux, so it has a dependency to libmono.so. The application only has one file and I compile it with the following command:

gcc -o HostApp main.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs mono`

This way I'm linking against the system libraries, however I plan to deploy this app without requiring mono installed on the system, so I want to place my own version of libmono.so(which I compiled from svn) in the executable's dir and force the HostApp to link against it instead of looking for it in the system. Anyone has any idea on how I should proceed?

Thanks in advance.

You'll have to check all the flags that pkg-config calls there (just run "pkg-config --cflags --libs mono" on the command line). Presuming it's just one (-lmono), the normal lib path includes the current directory.

You could also compile it in, since you have the source. This would be like a standalone executable.

The test that made me doubt was this :

1- I copied libmono.so to the source files directory
2- Renamed libmono.so to libmono123.so
3- Compiled : gcc -o HostApp main.c -L. -lmono123 `pkg-config --cflags mono`

This compiled fine so I tought : "The HostApp executable must have a reference to a file named libmono123.so which only exists in its directory"
HostApp runs fine after this compilation, however if I remove the libmono123.so from the directory the HostApp still runs, which makes me think it is still compiled against libmono.so from the system.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thiago

it is still compiled against libmono.so from the system.

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For sure. Do you understand what `pkg-config --cflags mono` means? `backticks` are a shell shorthand -- it means to substitute the output of the command here.

pkg-config --cflags mono is a shell command. Try it from the command line. All it does is output a list of compiler switches, generally a set of extensions to the include path and of course linkages, eg:

[user@commandprompt] pkg-config --cflags somelibpack
-I/usr/local/share/somelibpack/include -I/usr/local/share/someotherpack/include -lsomelib -lsomeother

So `pkg-config --cflags mono` substitutes all that before gcc is even called. If you use it, you will be linking to the mono distribution you have installed! If you don't want to do that, you cannot use pkg-config!

To my understanding the -I compiler option only passes the locations of the header files(which contains the definitions) thats why I only use the -cflags on pkg-config, if I did:
`pkg-config --cflags --libs mono` then I would be referencing the system installed libraries.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm new to C programming so thats what I understood when I first read about GCC

Ok, I managed to find out what was wrong using the 'ldd' command

It seems the lib filename is specified inside the library itself and not by the system, so when linking against libmono.so or libmono123.so I was actually linking to libmono.so.0(which must be defined in the library image).

However, renaming the file to libmono.so.0 was not enough, I had to specify the library search path at linking time with the following :

gcc -o HostApp main.o -Wl,-rpath=. -L. -lmono

-Wl flag pass options to the linker, in this case the 'rpath' option which specify the runtime linker search path.
Compiling the application like that will make the runtime linker to search the current directory for the library so if I have no libmono.so.0 in the current dir, the linker will look in the standard system directories.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thiago

To my understanding the -I compiler option only passes the locations of the header files(which contains the definitions)

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The -l 's are the complied library executables (eg, .so), not the headers. The headers for those are #included by you in your code.

I'm not really sure why pkg-config adds to the include path (which is the path the compiler uses to look for #include <files>), since a pre-compiled library cannot itself require the use of a header. In fact, I just trying compiling a gtk app (which uses `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-2.0`) without pkg-config by copying just the -l switches from the pkg-config output. Works fine, which is probably good news for you.

Quote:

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`pkg-config --cflags --libs mono` then I would be referencing the system installed libraries.

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Very definitely if you use pkg-config directly you will be linking to the installed system libraries. Did you try running pkg-config from the command line to see what libraries those are? Post the output here.

If -lmono is the only switch used then your solution should be good.

By linking to mono you are dragging a lot of extra libraries around....just be sure its worth it.