Re: libreadline and Debian 5 - not missing just badly named

"J. Bagg" <j(dot)bagg(at)kent(dot)ac(dot)uk> writes:
> I've just had the common problem with not finding the readline library
> while compiling/linking 8.4.4 on a new linux (Debian 5 - lenny). Nothing
> seemed to work: --with-libraries=/lib and pointing CFLAGs there all
> failed to find readline. The installed packages though said that it was
> present.

> The problem was that this linux had libreadline.so.5.2 with the symlink
> libreadline.so.5 not libreadline.so. In other words the link had too
> specific a name for the configure checks.

> Simple solution: create the correct symlink - libreadline.so

On Red Hat distributions, what lack of a .so symlink means is that you
forgot to install the readline-devel subpackage (or in general, the
-devel subpackage for whatever library is involved). I believe Debian
uses a similar convention.

The -devel package also generally carries the include files (.h files)
you need to compile anything using the library, so I'd sort of expect
that you don't get too much further with just a manually created symlink.

regards, tom lane