Search Path Rules

The dynamic linker and the runtime linker determine their search paths through a different algorithm from that used by the SunOS release 4 linker.

The examples below compare the search paths for the dynamic linker and the runtime linker for SunOS release 4 and the Solaris 7 operating environment. Notice that in the latter, the search path for the link editor and the runtime linker are affected by the LD_LIBRARY_PATH setting. However, the runtime linker permits programs to find shared libraries without having to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH and makes the loading of shared libraries even more efficient. In Solaris 7, use $ORIGIN instead, since you must build your program with a built-in library path relative to where prog is installed. For example .../package/bin/prog uses .../package/lib/libmine.so.1.

SunOS release 4 linker search paths:

• Link Editor: -L, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, /usr/lib, /usr/local/lib

• Runtime Linker: LD_LIBRARY_PATH, -L, /usr/lib, /usr/local/lib

Solaris 7 linker search paths (with LD_LIBRARY_PATH=dirlist1):

• Link Editor: -L, dirlist1, /usr/ccs/lib, /usr/lib

• Runtime Linker: dirlist1, -R, /usr/lib

Solaris 7 linker search paths (with LD_LIBRARY_PATH=dirlist1,dirlist2):

• Link Editor: dirlist1, -L, dirlist2, /usr/ccs/lib, /usr/lib

• Runtime Linker: dirlist1, dirlist2, -R, /usr/lib

Solaris 7 linker search paths using $ORIGIN

• Runtime Linker: -R, $ORIGIN/../lib

Also, with Solaris 7, LD_LIBRARY_PATH_64 is a 64-bit only version of LD_LIBRARY_PATH.