Everything in this post is off the top of my head.
How do I make any program (that I write) look for libraries in the running folder (or any specific one for that matter). Example:

I want to use zzip lib, which I have in the directory it was compiled under (I can't remember if it complains about 'undefined references' or not, but I don't think it does), however when I run it it says something like:

ld: unable to open file libzzip.etc.etc... no such file or directory

How do I make the program use libraries from any path I want?

Im' not sure what your problem is but...
gcc -L <the dir path> yourprogram.c
This is the method for using the libraries in
a specific directory

i think you might not have named your library as libzzip.so/libzzip.a that is causing this problem

If I understand you correctly, I think you are saying that you are not having any problems getting your program to compile, but it complains when you try to run the program?

I haven't worked much with my own libraries in Linux, so this could be wrong, but I think you need to put your path to your .so into /etc/ld.so.conf, and then run ldconfig as root... Obviously, this might cause problems if you want to be able to move your .so around a lot, so it might just be good to put it in a standard lib directory like /usr/lib, or /lib.

This is what I DON'T want to do.

This is what I want.

I'll try what you suggested shishir. I'll get back with you soon!

Ok... I'm confused. Are you saying that I am right that you are getting no errors when compiling, but you get errors when you try to run the program? Saying, "This is what I want" makes no sense because I wouldn't think you would WANT errors at all...

this is the problem becoz the GNU linke ld, check the library file to link in l/lib and /usr/lib gnerally and the name of the shared library should be fothe form lib<name>.so.0 or lib<name>.a or similar ... the <name> specifies the name fo the libarary and the when compiling and linking you need give the name as such along with the -l option .. this how it works...

Ok Sorry for the confusion! I am bad at explaining things! =P

I have my program that uses libzzip for opening zipped files. It compiles fine when I install libzzip system wide. However I don't want to do this, I want libzzip to reside in the same folder as my application (not system wide). But when I do this, it compiles fine but won't run, and gives an error as such:

ld: unable to open libzzip.so, no such file or directory.

Whats wrong?

Ok! I just made a test program. I am not showing the code because it is an empty program, that includes zzip.h and links the library at compile. This is how I compile it:

g++ -L. -O3 -o test test.cpp -lzzip

But when it is run it says:

./test: error while loading shared libraries: libzzip-0.so.10: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Both libzzip.so and libzzip-0.so.10 are in the directory where the program is being run.

As I said before, for shared objects, I think you need the directory of your library in /etc/ld.so.conf, and ldconfig run. That doesn't seem desireable for what you want, though. Another option might be to get a static library version of libzzip, and link that instead (libzzip-0.a). Then that library isn't needed at runtime at all. It is compiled right into your executable code instead.

I think I've also seen some references to dynamically loading libraries, but I don't know if that would give you what you need, or how to use that. It might be worth looking into. I think the library I saw was roughly equivalent to the LoadLibrary/GetProcAddress APIs in Win32. If it was, it could be what you are looking for. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of any of those functions, offhand.

try putting the path where your .so is in LD_LIBRARY_PATH..am sure it will work...
cos otherwise you'd have to modify you ld.so.conf to specifty where all you want the loader to look for the .so's