ld can't find X11 library on OSX Leopard

Question

I have a pretty basic X11 app that I run on Linux that I'm trying to get compiled under OSX 10.5.8. I have X11 and the X11 SDK installed, and modified the makefile as follows:

CFLAGS = -L/usr/X11/lib -I/usr/X11/include

Everything compiles fine, but the linker can't find the X11 lib.

ld: library not found for -lX11

I've looked on google, but the only other people I've found with this problem so far either didn't have the X11 SDK installed or didn't know about the -L flag.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You may be looking in the wrong location for the library; it's certainly in a different location on my OS X box. Try typing:

locate libX11.dylib

and adding an appropriate path. E.g. on my system you'd need -L/usr/X11/lib/ in you CFLAGS.

Answer 2

gcc SimpleXlibApp.c -o SimpleXlibApp -lX11 -L/usr/X11/lib -I/usr/X11/include

That line compiles the example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xlib

Answer 3

-L/usr/X11/lib doesn't work with OSX 10.6 and it has libX11.dylib :

% ls -l /usr/X11/lib/libX11.*
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel       14 Jul 21 17:46 /usr/X11/lib/libX11.6.2.0.dylib@ -> libX11.6.dylib
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  3578368 Jul 12  2010 /usr/X11/lib/libX11.6.dylib*
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel       14 Jul 21 17:46 /usr/X11/lib/libX11.dylib@ -> libX11.6.dylib