What exactly are the lib and include flags about?

Cody Pendant has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm trying to install XML and XSLT modules on a linux system.

The requisite libraries, libxml and libxslt can't be found in the expected places when I do the "perl Makefile.PL" thing.

Now there are some likely-looking files in, say, "/usr/local/lib/", so that would be the command-line flag for the "Library", but what about the "Include" part? Nothing comes up when I do "locate", but the "yum" utility says there's nothing to install. Can either part be optional?

Obviously, I'm ignorant about how these things work. Can someone explain what the library and include files mean, and what they do?

($_='kkvvttuu bbooppuuiiffss qqffssmm iibbddllffss')
=~y~b-v~a-z~s; print

Comment on What exactly are the lib and include flags about?

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Re: What exactly are the lib and include flags about? by zentara (Cardinal) on Jan 28, 2006 at 12:40 UTC
The include files are the header files, with .h suffixes. If the libs are in /usr/local/lib, the header files will be in /usr/local/include. (or the pair /usr/lib /usr/include ). They may be in a subdir too, or have a link pointing to them. The header files, list the functions available in the c lib, and how to access them, and some constant definitions. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh	[reply]
Re^2: What exactly are the lib and include flags about? by Cody Pendant (Prior) on Jan 28, 2006 at 21:47 UTC
Thanks for that. But in my specific position: no "include" files appear when searching the apt-get or other installer says the package is up to date What would you do exactly? ($_='kkvvttuu bbooppuuiiffss qqffssmm iibbddllffss') =~y~b-v~a-z~s; print	[reply]
Re^3: What exactly are the lib and include flags about? by tirwhan (Abbot) on Jan 28, 2006 at 23:01 UTC
Try installing the appropriate -dev packages with apt-get (for example libxslt1-dev), those will include the header files you require. If you're using Debian (since you're working with apt-get) you can also use the apt-file utility or http://packages.debian.org to find out which package contains the file(s) you're missing. There are ten types of people: those that understand binary and those that don't.*	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: What exactly are the lib and include flags about? by zentara (Cardinal) on Jan 29, 2006 at 11:23 UTC
What would you do exactly? I always just get the source tarball and build the libs from source, that way you get the "dev" files. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh	[reply]
Re: What exactly are the lib and include flags about? by Cody Pendant (Prior) on Jan 30, 2006 at 04:54 UTC
Thanks again everyone for your help. I'm now sorted out and not only that, I understand more! ($_='kkvvttuu bbooppuuiiffss qqffssmm iibbddllffss') =~y~b-v~a-z~s; print	[reply]