How do I build one autotools project against another autotoolset project that is not installed?

Question

Say I have two autotools projects:

• libmyutils
• libmypackage

The libmypackage library has a dependency on libmyutils. Is there a way to have libmypackage link to and reference the libmyutils package without it actually being installed? Or do I have to actually install libmyutils in order for libmypackage to access it?

Example:

# Contains src/*, configure, etc.
~/workspaces/libmyutils

# Contains src/*, configure, etc.
~/workspaces/libmypackage

The problem is that I want to keep libmyutils as its own package so that other libraries will be able to use it (libmypackage2, libmypackage3, etc.) but since I may be actively doing development both on libmyutils and libmypackage, I would like to avoid having to compile and install libmyutils every time I make a change.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

i have a tree of subprojects i work with and i set my libmylib_la_LIBADD vars to point to the compiled but uninstalled lib so that during testing / debugging i link to the lib in the build system and get the benefits if incremental compile, etc...

libmyapplib_la_LIBADD = -lpthread $(top_builddir)/components/common/libmyutils.la

then, later when i install with configure --prefix=whatever, configure correctly does the final link to the installed location of the util lib