On Mon, 8 Oct 2001, Bill Moseley wrote: > http://www.gnu.org/software/ac-archive/Installed_Packages/smr_with_build_pat > h.html > >(i.e. *don't* do --with-libfoo=<dir>) > > Oh, so that's what I'm doing. What's wrong with --with-libfoo? > > Actually, it seems necessary in my situation, because the library is *not* > linked in by default. --with-libxml2 enables it.
--with-libfoo is fine, to enable the use of an optional library; that's what it's there for. What I was recommending against was --with-libfoo=<dir>, to simultaneously specify a search directory. Some reasons I can think of for avoiding --with-libfoo=<dir> are: * It forces the user to learn a different syntax for every program and package, where as CPPFLAGS/LDFLAGS is general. * It's unclear how to specify separate header and library search paths. * In programs that use multiplie librares, the user may end up specifying the same search path multiple times, versus once with CPPFLAGS/LDFLAGS. * --without-libfoo doesn't work as expected. Steven PS. For programs with a foo-config program, the user should instead make sure that foo-config is in the PATH (./configure PATH="/foo/bin:$PATH"), but the principle is the same.
