gcc library and linker documentation

[Eljay Love-Jensen]

Hi Joseph,

>how to search and get relevant documentation for using certain functions

Stroustrup's C++ Programming Language (3rd ed or Special ed).

Cline, Lomow, Girou's C++ FAQs (2nd ed).

>I'm unclear as to when I would need to use the L option to specify libraries 
on the command line.

The -L option is used to specify the path which libraries are located.  For instance, if you had some libraries at ~jolic/3party/hotdog you could specify -L~jolic/3party/hotdog and GCC would use that path location to resolve the -lhotdog library.

Without the -L~jolic/3party/hotdog, GCC wouldn't know to check in that location for libhotdog.so or libhotdog.a.

>Do you know of any tutorials on the internet that would cover these kinds of  fundamentals.

<http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/>

HTH,
--Eljay