GCC Linking Options

I'm new to the world of bui开发者_Python百科lding. I've always let my IDE take care of it for me, but now I'm working with autotools and command line.

Could someone explain the difference between gcc's

-l LIBNAME - Search for library LIBNAME

and -L DIRECTORY - Add DIRECTORY to library search path

Can the same linking be accomplished with either and it's just a style preference which gets used? Or is there actually something seriously different happening?

Thanks,

Andrew

Usually you use both:

• -l libname specifies the libraries you want to link, think single files.
• -L specifies paths where the linker should look for them (in addition to the standard ones), think directories

The -L command adds a path to the list of locations the linker searches to find libraries.

The -l option means it searches for a library by the name you specify

Basically the -l option tells it to look for a library by that name and -L allows you to specify places to look.

More Information: http://linux.die.net/man/1/ld