So far I've tried all sugestions to solve my problem ...
I've just done some checking with Inline::C (not Inline::CPP), and it seems that you should also be able to link directly to the .so file using
LIBS => '-L/path/to/so_file -lsay_hi',
If that works with Inline::C (which it seems to), the same thing should probably be working with Inline::CPP.
Of course, if libsay_hi.so is already in a location where the linker will find it, then the "-L/path/to/so_file" part should not be necessary.
Could you double-check using "LIBS" with Inline::CPP ?
I was initially of the view that EU::MM might do things that prevented you from linking directly to a shared object using the "LIBS" option - and that MYEXTLIBS would then be the *only* way of achieving this.
But, like I say, this now seems to me to *not* be the case - with Inline::C and perl-5.18.0 at least.
Cheers,
Rob