Linking a shared library

[Edward Diener]

On 6/2/2018 1:54 AM, Marc Glisse wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Jun 2018, Edward Diener wrote:
> 
>> An executable I am creating needs to link and run with a shared 
>> library called, let's say, 'libmyshare.so' in a relative directory 
>> called, let's say 'mylibs/lib'.
>>
>> Does using the -L option while compiling the source files to object 
>> files add the relative directory 'mylibs/lib' to the library search 
>> path for shared libraries when linking ?
> 
> No. Since -L tells -l where to look, why would you want to separate them 
> into 2 separate commands? Did some documentation recommend that somewhere?
> 
> clang even gives you a warning if you pass -L to a compile (-c) command.
> 
>> Do I specify the shared library to the linker as '-lmyshare' when 
>> linking or do I rather specify the shared library simply as 
>> 'libmyshare.so' when linking ?
> 
> -lmyshare (or you can pass /full/path/to/libmyshare.so and omit the -L 
> option).
> 
>> I have tried using '-Lmylibs/lib' when compiling and '-lmyshare' when 
>> linking but the linker fails with the message:
>>
>> /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lmyshare
>>
>> so I am doing something wrong and do not know what it is.
> 
> (your next question will likely be how to tell where to find the library 
> at runtime...)
> 

I figured out what was wrong when linking. I had specified the symbolic 
link incorrectly so that the library name 'libmyshare.so' was a link 
which was pointing to a file that did not exist.