git build failure with libssl (OpenSSL) in custom directory

Hi all,

I've built Git on a Debian Linux box where I don't have root rights. I first built OpenSSL 1.0.0b and Curl successfully, installing both in $HOME/apps. I tried to do the same for Git, using

  CPPFLAGS=-I$HOME/apps/include LDFLAGS=-L$HOME/apps/lib make
prefix=$HOME/apps all doc info

but the build failed with the error

      LINK git-fast-import
  /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lcrypto
  collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
  make: *** [git-fast-import] Error 1

I checked the Makefile, and found

  # CFLAGS and LDFLAGS are for the users to override from the command line.

  CFLAGS = -g -O2 -Wall
  LDFLAGS =

I'm not a Makefile expert, but it seems to me that the last line contradicts the comment. In any case, changing it to

  LDFLAGS = -L$(HOME)/apps/lib -lssl -lcrypto -ldl

worked, but only after also building and installing a shared library version of OpenSSL.

I've got a working Git now, but I thought I'd let you know. I haven't checked out the development version yet.

Regards, Lars

PS.: I'm not a member of this list, but git-scm.com suggested I send my question to you.

Hi Lars,

Lars Buitinck wrote:

How about

	prefix=$HOME/apps
	make CPPFLAGS=-I$prefix/include LDFLAGS=-L$prefix/lib prefix=$prefix \
		all doc info

?

Yes, that works fine with LDFLAGS= in the Makefile. Is this just a lack of Makefile-fu on my part?

2010/11/18 Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>:

Lars Buitinck wrote:

In general, "make" likes to get its variable assignments on the command line rather than from the environment. This way, Makefile authors do not have to worry about keeping variable names in a tightly reined namespace.

On the other hand, it can be convenient to set up the environment with flags that would be used for multiple builds. Different projects deal with that differently:

./configure takes certain values (including LDFLAGS) from the environment in autotools-using projects. ./configure --help=short lists them.

The Linux kernel build system has a separate (namespaced) set of variables it reads from the environment. Example: exporting KBUILD_OUTPUT=$HOME/.cache/linux-2.6 in .profile would save me from typing "make O=$HOME/.cache/linux-2.6" every time I build the kernel. They are documented in Documentation/kbuild/kbuild.txt.

Git reads settings from a config.mak file in the toplevel of the git source tree. So one can set

	LDFLAGS = -L$(HOME)/opt/git/lib

there and it will be used for all builds.