Home/ Questions/Q 8197927
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-07T05:50:36+00:00

After reading this question , my first reaction was that the user is not

  • 0

After reading this question, my first reaction was that the user is not seeing the error because he specifies the location of the library with -L.

However, apparently, the -L option only influences where the linker looks, and has no influence over where the loader looks when you try to run the compiled application.

My question then is what’s the point of -L? Since you won’t be able to run your binary unless you have the proper directories in LD_LIBRARY_PATH anyway, why not just put them there in the first place, and drop the -L, since the linker looks in LD_LIBRARY_PATH automatically?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It might be the case that you are cross-compiling and the linker is targeting a system other than your own. For instance, MinGW can be used to compile Windows binaries on Linux. Here -L will point to the DLLs needed for linking and LD_LIBRARY_PATH will point to any libraries needed by linker to run. This allows compiling and linking of different architectures, OS ABIs, or processor types.

    It’s also helpful when trying to build special targets. I might be case that one links a static version of program against a different static library. This is the first step in Linux From Scratch, where one creates a separate mini-environment on the main system to become a chroot jail.

    • 0