[PHP-INSTALL] Configure problems on dual MySQL machine

[Stuart A. Malone]

I'm hoping to gradually transition my FreeBSD 4.7 web server from MySQL 
3.23 and PHP 4.3 to MySQL 4.1.7 and PHP 5.0.2.  I've successfully 
installed MySQL 4.1.7 into a separate directory and given it a distinct 
port and Unix socket, and it seems to be running happily alongside its 
older counterpart.

The problem arises when I attempt to configure PHP 5.0.2 from source. 
I'm trying to specify the version of MySQL to use by specifying to 
configure:

./configure --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql4 
--with-mysqli=/usr/local/mysql4/bin/mysql_config

But configure errors out with:
checking for mysql_set_server_option in -lmysqlclient... no
configure: error: wrong mysql library version or lib not found. Check 
config.log for more information.

Looking at config.log reveals that configure is attempting to link to 
MySQL using a command like:

gcc -o conftest -g -O2 -R/usr/local/lib/ -L/usr/local/lib 
-R/usr/local/mysql4/lib/mysql -L/usr/local/mysql4/lib/mysql ...

I believe the problem is that configure is searching /usr/local/lib 
before it searches /usr/local/mysql4/lib/mysql, and so it is linking 
with the older MySQL 3.23 libraries.  It seems to prepend /usr/local/lib 
to the library search path between the check for mysql_close and the 
check for mysql_set_server_option.  I'm not sure why.

Does someone know of a way to convince configure to keep 
/usr/local/mysql4/lib/mysql before /usr/local/lib in the search path, so 
 it will find the right libraries?

Thanks,
--Stuart A. Malone
  Llamagraphics, Inc.