LD_LIBRARY_PATH & LD_FLAGS; what's the difference?

johnpaulodonnell · 07-27-2006, 06:47 AM

Having some trouble installing software in SUSE 10.0 on an x86_64 machine. New to unix. Something that I need to know is the difference between the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable and the LD_FLAGS variable. To me they both seem to do the same thing???

Would be grateful if anyone could stick down a few lines explaining the difference/advantage/disadvantage of these variables.

Thanks

crazyjimbo · 07-27-2006, 11:29 PM

LD_LIBRARY_PATH is an environment variable used by ld.so (the dynamic linker). It allows you to specify directories to search for libraries needed by a program at runtime.

LD_FLAGS is a variable in makefiles normally I believe, and it allows you to pass flags to ld which links object files into an executable. i.e. the command ld $(LD_FLAGS) file1.o file2.o -o file is run.

I THINK this is what they are, but reading the man pages for things related to linking and make might give you more in depth answer.