Question

I have a /usr/lib/libtiff.so.3 as a symbolic link to /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libtiff.so.4.3.3. I need to use some data structures declared in a file called tiffio.h which is part of the tiff library mentioned above to handle .tif image files in my c++ source. The c++ source mycode.cpp is as follows:

#include <iostream>
#include <tiffio.h>
using namespace std;

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {

if (argc < 2) {
    cout << "USAGE: mycode <inputimage> <outputimage> "<< endl;
    return (-1);
}
 return 0;
}

I compile the source with g++ in the following way:

g++ -Wall -L/usr/lib mycode.cpp -ltiff -o mycode

I get the following error:

fatal error: tiffio: No such file or directory. compilation terminated.

I have tried with using the following options for including the tiffio.h but error persists.

<tiffio>, "tiffio.h",  extern "C" {"tiffio.h"} and extern "C" {<tiffio.h>}

Am I doing anything fundamentally wrong? How can I compile and link the source?

Answer 1

It depends on where your tiffio.h file is.
If it is at a place where your g++ usually looks for header files you can include it using

#include <tiffio.h>

If it is in the same directory as your .cpp File you can include it using

#include "tiffio.h"

If it is somewhere else you have two possibilities:

Either add its location to your search path by adding -I pathToLocation to your g++ call

Or include it using

#include "pathToLocation/tiffio.h"

The directorys normaly searched by the g++ are

/usr/local/include
libdir/gcc/target/version/include
/usr/target/include
/usr/include

If the g++ can’t find the library itself (the .so file) you can add it (with path) directly to your g++ call.