Re: Could not build from source /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lpgcommon_shlib

Dennis Suratna <dennis(dot)suratna(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> And I got the same error. I have attached the full make output to this
> reply.

Well, this is pretty interesting:

make -C src all
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/dennis/workspace/pgsql_build/src'
make -C common all
make[2]: Entering directory '/home/dennis/workspace/pgsql_build/src/common'
make[2]: Nothing to be done for 'all'.
make[2]: Leaving directory '/home/dennis/workspace/pgsql_build/src/common'

"make" didn't find anything to do there. However, digging through the
rest of the make log, I find that the backend link went through
successfully with

/home/dennis/workspace/pgsql_build/../postgresql/src/backend/../../src/common/libpgcommon_srv.a

If I'm counting ".."'s correctly, that's pointing at

/home/dennis/workspace/postgresql/src/common/libpgcommon_srv.a

that is, something in your source tree not your build tree.

Extrapolating, I'd guess that you have a partial build laying about in
your source tree that includes libpgcommon_shlib.a, and depending on just
how a particular Makefile is worded, the VPATH mechanism might find that
file when libpgcommon_shlib.a is asked for; it's certainly enough to
discourage make itself from building a new copy in the build tree. But
the linker doesn't know enough to find that from "-lpgcommon_shlib".

In short, you need to clean out your source tree before trying to do a
VPATH build. If using git, "git clean -dfx" would do it. Otherwise
you might be best advised to blow away the tree and re-extract the
tarball you started from.

regards, tom lane