I have recently converted my C++ project to use Autoconf / Automake and have
hit a strange problem.

The program will only link if I include one particular library four times in
the myprog_LDADD statement in the Makefile.am in my top level directory. If
I remove the last occurrence, I get undefined symbols.

I was aware that it is sometimes necessary to repeat libraries in the list
of libraries, but I thought it would be sufficient for each library to
occur twice.

Can anyone help? What is happenong?

I have included my Makefile.am below.  I have highlighted the offending
library with ****

I'm fairly new to Autoconf / Automake, so I may well be doing something
completely wrong!

Chris Gordon-Smith
www.simsoup.info


=======================================
SUBDIRS = Utilities Kernel User_Interface_Presentation
User_Interface_Manager \
          Statistics  Persistent_Data_Manager  Global_Include

METASOURCES = AUTO
bin_PROGRAMS = simsoup
simsoup_SOURCES      = main.cpp       
noinst_HEADERS =              

AM_CPPFLAGS = -I./Global_Include                                       \
              -I./Utilities                                            \
              -I./Utilities/Logger                                     \
              -I./User_Interface_Presentation/SimSoup_GUI/API          \
              -I./User_Interface_Manager/Form_Manager                  \
              -I./User_Interface_Manager/Form_Manager/User_Actions_API \
              -I./Kernel/Kernel_Manager                                \
              -I./Statistics                                           \
              -I./Persistent_Data_Manager                             

simsoup_LDADD = ./Kernel/Kernel_Manager/libKernel_Manager.a                
\
              ./Kernel/Kernel_API/libKernel_API.a                          
\
              ./Kernel/Reactor/libReactor.a                                
\
              ./Kernel/Simulation/libSimulation.a                          
\
              ./Kernel/Simulation/Action_Request/libAction_Request.a       
\
              ./Kernel/Simulation/ActReq_Rqstr/libActReq_Rqstr.a           
\
              ./Kernel/Simulation/Attribute/libAttribute.a                 
\
              ./Kernel/Tracker/libTracker.a                                
\
              ./User_Interface_Manager/Form_Manager/libForm_Manager.a      
\
              ./User_Interface_Manager/Network_Painter/libNetwork_Painter.a
\
              ./User_Interface_Presentation/GUI_Tools/libGUI_Tools.a       
\
              ./User_Interface_Presentation/SimSoup_GUI/libSimSoup_GUI.a   
\
              ./Utilities/libUtilities.a                                   
\
              ./Utilities/List/libList.a                                   
\
              ./Utilities/Logger/libLogger.a                               
\
              ./Statistics/libStatistics.a                                 
\
              ./Persistent_Data_Manager/libPersistent_Data_Manager.a       
\
              ./Kernel/Chemistry/libChemistry.a                            
\
                                                                           
\
              ./Kernel/Kernel_Manager/libKernel_Manager.a                  
\
              ./Kernel/Kernel_API/libKernel_API.a                          
\
              ./Kernel/Reactor/libReactor.a                                
\
              ./Kernel/Simulation/libSimulation.a                          
\
              ./Kernel/Simulation/Action_Request/libAction_Request.a       
\
              ./Kernel/Simulation/ActReq_Rqstr/libActReq_Rqstr.a           
\
              ./Kernel/Simulation/Attribute/libAttribute.a                 
\
              ./Kernel/Tracker/libTracker.a                                
\
              ./User_Interface_Manager/Form_Manager/libForm_Manager.a      
\
              ./User_Interface_Manager/Network_Painter/libNetwork_Painter.a
\
              ./User_Interface_Presentation/GUI_Tools/libGUI_Tools.a       
\
              ./User_Interface_Presentation/SimSoup_GUI/libSimSoup_GUI.a   
\
              ./Utilities/libUtilities.a                                   
\
              ./Utilities/List/libList.a                                   
\
              ./Utilities/Logger/libLogger.a                               
\
              ./Statistics/libStatistics.a                                 
\
              ./Persistent_Data_Manager/libPersistent_Data_Manager.a       
\
              ./Kernel/Chemistry/libChemistry.a                            
\
              ./Kernel/Chemistry/libChemistry.a                            
\
              ./Kernel/Chemistry/libChemistry.a            // ****FAILS TO
LINK IF THIS IS REMOVED                                                                                                                                                     
           
simsoup_LDFLAGS = -L./Kernel/Chemistry                      \
              -L./Kernel/Kernel_Manager                     \
              -L./Kernel/Kernel_API                         \
              -L./Kernel/Reactor                            \
              -L./Kernel/Simulation                         \
              -L./Kernel/Simulation/Action_Request          \
              -L./Kernel/Simulation/ActReq_Rqstr            \
              -L./Kernel/Simulation/Attribute               \
              -L./Kernel/Tracker                            \
              -L./User_Interface_Manager/Form_Manager       \
              -L./User_Interface_Manager/Network_Painter    \
              -L./User_Interface_Presentation/GUI_Tools     \
              -L./User_Interface_Presentation/SimSoup_GUI   \
              -L./Utilities                                 \
              -L./Utilities/List                            \
              -L./Utilities/Logger                          \
              -L./Statistics                                \
              -L./Persistent_Data_Manager                   \
              -L/usr/lib                                    \
              -L/lib                                        \
              -L/usr/local/lib                              \
                                                            \
              `pkg-config gtkmm-2.4 --libs`                 \
              `pkg-config gsl --libs`                    
=====================

Chris Gordon-Smith wrote:

> I have recently converted my C++ project to use Autoconf / Automake and
> have hit a strange problem.
> 
> The program will only link if I include one particular library four times
> in the myprog_LDADD statement in the Makefile.am in my top level
> directory. If I remove the last occurrence, I get undefined symbols.
> 
> I was aware that it is sometimes necessary to repeat libraries in the list
> of libraries, but I thought it would be sufficient for each library to
> occur twice.
> 
> Can anyone help? What is happenong?
> 
> I have included my Makefile.am below.  I have highlighted the offending
> library with ****
> 
> I'm fairly new to Autoconf / Automake, so I may well be doing something
> completely wrong!
> 
> Chris Gordon-Smith
> www.simsoup.info
> 

Problem now fixed. It seems to have been something my IDE was doing to the
build files, rather than a 'real' problem. Invoking the build from the
command line works fine.

Apologies for any inconvenience.

Chris Gordon-Smith
www.simsoup.info

On 13 Sep, 17:58, Chris Gordon-Smith <use.addr...@my.homepage> wrote:
> Chris Gordon-Smith wrote:

> > I have recently converted my C++ project to use Autoconf / Automake and
> > have hit a strange problem.
>
> Problem now fixed. It seems to have been something my IDE was doing to the
> build files, rather than a 'real' problem. Invoking the build from the
> command line works fine.

One more data point to convince me that most IDE's are
more trouble than they are worth.

One point: in your Makefile.am, you have:
AM_CPPFLAGS = -I./Global_Include
\
              -I./Utilities
\
<snip>

It is probably better to use:
-I$(srcdir)/Global_include

since using '.' makes a VPATH build impossible.
(ie, you must run configure from the top srcdir, and
won't be able to do:
mkdir build && cd build && ../srcdir/configure
which is a really convenient feature that people
expect to work.)

William Pursell wrote:

> On 13 Sep, 17:58, Chris Gordon-Smith <use.addr...@my.homepage> wrote:
>> Chris Gordon-Smith wrote:
> 
>> > I have recently converted my C++ project to use Autoconf / Automake and
>> > have hit a strange problem.
>>
>> Problem now fixed. It seems to have been something my IDE was doing to
>> the build files, rather than a 'real' problem. Invoking the build from
>> the command line works fine.
> 
> One more data point to convince me that most IDE's are
> more trouble than they are worth.
> 
> One point: in your Makefile.am, you have:
> AM_CPPFLAGS = -I./Global_Include
> \
>               -I./Utilities
> \
> <snip>
> 
> It is probably better to use:
> -I$(srcdir)/Global_include
> 
> since using '.' makes a VPATH build impossible.
> (ie, you must run configure from the top srcdir, and
> won't be able to do:
> mkdir build && cd build && ../srcdir/configure
> which is a really convenient feature that people
> expect to work.)

Thanks. I'll adopt $(srcdir) as you suggest throughout.

Regarding IDEs, my view is that a very good code explorer is essential,
along with a facility that can navigate in one key press / button click to
a line of code referenced in a complier / linker message.

With a lot of tweaking, I managed to get a usable code explorer setup with
Emacs, using Emacs Code Browser(ECB). Eventually however I concluded that
it was not as effective as the KDevelop code browser, mainly because it
presents a less integrated view and in some cases behaves unpredictably.

Apart from this, I prefer to take control of what is going on in a number of
aress. This applies particularly to the build. KDevelop does a good job of
producing a set of Makefiles without the programmer needing to know
anything about Make, Autoconf or Automake. However, I was only able to
create a source distribution when I began to understand what was actually
happening, and I don't let my IDE change the build files (except by mistake
as above).

Chris Gordon-Smith
www.simsoup.info