RE: Specifying path to headers and libraries with configure

[Dan Kegel]

Ollie Cook wrote:
> I have an application which links against librrd 
> and I'd like my configure script to find where the 
> rrd.h header and librrd.a library files are so
> that it can pass the paths to the compiler with -I and -L
> 
> I'm currently doing it with ... 
> --with-includes=LIST 
> LIST is a colon separated list of include paths
> --with-libraries=LIST  
> LIST is a colon separated list of libraries paths
> ...
> would appreciate some advice on the proper way to check 
> for libraries and header files in unusual
> directories (RRDtool keeps them in /usr/local/rrd-x.y.z/(include|lib)/).

I tend to do it with e.g. --with-rrd=PATH
where PATH might be /usr/local/rrd-x.y.z
That adds the right thing to both the include path and the library path.
PATH defaults to /usr.

This has worked well for me with, say, CORBA libraries.

The way I go about this is to write a single autoconf macro
for the package I want to support (say, rrd), then use that
macro in all apps I write that use that package.  Check
out the (still ugly) corbaconf project for an example.

- Dan