Why would autoconf/automake project link against installed library instead of local development library?

Question

I'm creating a library `libgdata` that has some tests and non-installed programs. I am running into the problem that once I've installed the library once, the programs seem to be linking to the installed version and not the local version in `../src/libgdata.la` any longer. What could cause this? Am I doing something horribly wrong? Here is what my `test/Makefile.am` looks like: ``` INCLUDES = -I$(top_srcdir)/src/ -I$(top_srcdir)/test/ # libapiutil contains all of our dependencies! AM_CXXFLAGS = $(APIUTIL_CFLAGS) AM_LDFLAGS = $(APIUTIL_LIBS) LDADD = $(top_builddir)/src/libgdata.la noinst_PROGRAMS = gdatacalendar gdatayoutube gdatacalendar_SOURCES = gdatacalendar.cc gdatayoutube_SOURCES = gdatayoutube.cc TESTS = check_bare check_PROGRAMS = $(TESTS) check_bare_SOURCES = check_bare.cc ``` (`libapiutil` is another library that has some helper stuff for dealing with libcurl and libxml++) So, for instance, if I run the tests without having installed anything, everything works fine. I can mak…

Accepted Answer

I think I've sorted this out.

The problem should be that libtool sees the "-L" flag in the command line before it sees the "../src/libgdata.so" part. In this case, it executes the linker with "-Wl,-rpath,..." for that "-L" path. If that path contains "libgdata.so", then it will always be used, which is the case here.

In my case, I've rearranged "prog_LDADD" to like like this: "prog_LDADD = $(top_builddir)/src/my_lib.so $(DEPENDENCY_LIBS)"

In your case, try to delete AM_LDFLAGS and write:

LDADD = $(top_builddir)/src/libgdata.la $(APIUTIL_LIBS)

Why would autoconf/automake project link against installed library instead of local development library?

Solution

Problem