#2822: support full paths to libraries in LIBS variables
Reporter: Roland Haas Status: open Milestone: Version: Type: bug Priority: minor Component:
Changes (by Roland Haas): On macOS using Homebrew `pkg-config` for HDF5 returns full library paths instead of `-lLIBNAME` stanzas:
``` rhaas@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@gdd6l52n-ofc Cactus % g++-14 `pkg-config --libs-only-L hdf5` `pkg-config --libs-only-l --static hdf5` dummy.c ld: library '/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.sdk/usr/lib/libz.tbd' not found collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status ```
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@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++-14 `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/cb3a873135a3032230aa687ed617...) "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...