/usr/bin/ld: cannot find shared library

Question

I am having libcommon.so in the /usr/local/lib and I am linking this library in my program.

gcc -o test test_prog.c -L/usr/local/lib -llibcommon.so

and I have tried this too

gcc -o test test_prog.c -L/usr/local/lib -llibcommon

It's giving

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -llibcommon.so
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

It is there:

$ locate libcommon.so
/usr/local/lib/libcommon.so
/usr/local/lib/libcommon.so.0
/usr/local/lib/libcommon.so.0.1.0
$

Answer 1

try to export LD_LIBRARY_PATH pointing to the directory where you have kept the so files .

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH = /pathofdirectorywheresofilesarekept

Answer 2

When you use the -l, you specify just the 'basic' library name:

-lcommon

This will track down libcommon.so in some directory.

You told the compiler to try and find liblibcommon.so.so (and liblibcommon.so) and it probably couldn't...indeed, you wouldn't be asking the question if it could.

Some GNU programs build a library libiberty.so (or its equivalent), so the link lines using the library link with:

-liberty

(which is funny; GNU would really rather it was +liberty, but ... you can't fix everything).

Answer 3

Use -lcommon switch when you link libcommon.so