[ET Trac] #2822: support full paths to libraries in LIBS variables

[Roland Haas]

#2822: support full paths to libraries in LIBS variables

 Reporter: Roland Haas
   Status: new
Milestone: 
  Version: 
     Type: bug
 Priority: minor
Component: 

On macOS using Homebrew `pkg-config` for HDF5 returns full library paths instead of `-lLIBNAME` stanzas:  

```
rhaas at gdd6l52n-ofc Cactus % pkg-config --libs-only-l --static hdf5
-lhdf5 -lm -ldl -l/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.sdk/usr/lib/libz.tbd -l/opt/homebrew/lib/libsz.dylib
```

This happens only for static linking. This causes g\+\+ to fail at link time:

```
rhaas at gdd6l52n-ofc Cactus % g++ `pkg-config --libs-only-L hdf5` `pkg-config --libs-only-l --static hdf5` dummy.c
clang: warning: treating 'c' input as 'c++' when in C++ mode, this behavior is deprecated [-Wdeprecated]
ld: library '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.sdk/usr/lib/libz.tbd' not found
```

This seems like bug in the pkg-config file \(\`/opt/homebrew/Cellar/hdf5/1.14.3\_1/lib/pkgconfig/hdf5.pc\`\) supplied by HomeBrew:  

```
rhaas at gdd6l52n-ofc Cactus % cat /opt/homebrew/Cellar/hdf5/1.14.3_1/lib/pkgconfig/hdf5.pc
prefix=/opt/homebrew/Cellar/hdf5/1.14.3_1
exec_prefix=${prefix}
libdir=${exec_prefix}/lib
includedir=${prefix}/include

Name: hdf5
Description: HDF5 (Hierarchical Data Format 5) Software Library
Version: 1.14.3

Cflags: -I${includedir}
Libs: -L${libdir}  -lhdf5
Requires:
Libs.private:  -lhdf5  -lm -ldl -l/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.sdk/usr/lib/libz.tbd -l/opt/homebrew/lib/libsz.dylib -l/opt/homebrew/lib/libsz.dylib
Requires.private:
```

Correct would be to not use `-l` with the full path \(at least it will link\):  

```
g++ `pkg-config --libs-only-L hdf5` dummy.c /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.sdk/usr/lib/libz.tbd
```

  
Right now we have no way of handling full paths in LIBS files though git hash [cb3a8731](https://bitbucket.org/cactuscode/cactus/commits/cb3a873135a3032230aa687ed6174081c66b90b1) "Cactus: New pseudo-flag `-file=`" of [cactus](https://bitbucket.org/cactuscode/cactus) proposes some \(partial\) solution. This would require changes in all ExternalLibraries though \(that may need to pass `LIBS` to their own `configure`\). Another solution might be \(in `bash_utils.sh`\) to detect full paths in `-l` entries and split into a `-L` and a `-l` entry. This assumes knowledge of the library prefix \(usually `lib`\) and extension \(`.a`, `.so`, `.dylib`, `.dll`\).  
A workaround for HDF5 is to self-compile HDF5 using `HDF5_DIR=BUILD`.

--
Ticket URL: https://bitbucket.org/einsteintoolkit/tickets/issues/2822/support-full-paths-to-libraries-in-libs
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