[SOLVED] compiling a C program with header files in a separate directory

emaritza · 06-08-2012, 10:38 AM

My question is an indication of how new I am to Linux.

I have a small program "main.c" in my cctools directory. It's header files are in cctools/include/cctools.

How do I write the path to compile this little program? I've sought out tutorials, and I've tried the following but it did not work.

gcc -Wall -I/include/cctools -L/include/cctools/lib main.c hello_fn.c -o newHello -lhello

What do I do?

414N · 06-08-2012, 10:45 AM

Wierd directory layout...
You just have to specify an absolute or relative path to the header files and the libraries with the -I and -L switches.
Try remove the first / from both paths, as you're telling gcc to search for include files and libraries under /include, which I doubt exists on your system.

suicidaleggroll · 06-08-2012, 10:48 AM

Remove the leading slash from your include and lib flags. When you put /include/cctools, the compiler looks in /include, not the include subdirectory of wherever you are. In the windows world, /include would be like C:\include. Unless your include is actually located in / (doubtful), that leading slash is telling it to look in the wrong place.

Edit: too slow

pan64 · 06-08-2012, 10:48 AM

in general you need to use either full path or relative path. Full path always begin with slash and starts at the root of the filesystem, relative paths starts with something else (usually with ./<dir> or ../<something> or <dirname>) which can be evaluated as a path from the current dir. You can always check if the given path valid by executing ls <path>. /include/cctools and /include/cctools/lib are probably both invalid paths in your example.

emaritza · 06-08-2012, 12:48 PM

Removing the leading "/" worked like a dream! Although it did generate an error stating:

"cannot find -lhello"

My new problem is that it did not create my executable file "newHello."

How do I get that to work?

414N · 06-09-2012, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emaritza

Removing the leading "/" worked like a dream! Although it did generate an error stating:

"cannot find -lhello"

My new problem is that it did not create my executable file "newHello."

How do I get that to work?

Do you have a file named libhello.so inside your lib directory?

emaritza · 06-12-2012, 05:47 PM

I do not.

I shall add that and try again.

Thank you for the insight!