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bogus error message from configure
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From: Bryan Henderson via curl-library <curl-library_at_lists.haxx.se>
Date: 11 Jul 2026 04:56:24 +0000
This is probably just a minor error message wording issue, but it isn't just
academic. It recently slowed me down in trying to build Curl as I went down
an unnecessary debugging rabbit hole.
For various libraries, assuming you don't tell 'configure' where to find it
with a --withXXX=PATH option, 'configure' tries 'pkg-config'. If 'pkg-config'
doesn't know anything, 'configure' falls back to a standard location.
Whatever the source of the location information, 'configure' checks whether
the library is there, and if not, issues a message like
configure: error: libpsl libs and/or directories were not found where specified!
But you get this even when didn't specify a location and even your system
(pkg-config) didn't specify one. The location that failed was just
configure's imagination.
This would be less misleading if it said "not found where expected" instead
of "not found where specified." Better still would be if it said explicitly
that the package was not known to 'pkg-config' and not found in a standard
location and suggested a --withXXX=PATH or --withoutXXX option.
Date: 11 Jul 2026 04:56:24 +0000
This is probably just a minor error message wording issue, but it isn't just
academic. It recently slowed me down in trying to build Curl as I went down
an unnecessary debugging rabbit hole.
For various libraries, assuming you don't tell 'configure' where to find it
with a --withXXX=PATH option, 'configure' tries 'pkg-config'. If 'pkg-config'
doesn't know anything, 'configure' falls back to a standard location.
Whatever the source of the location information, 'configure' checks whether
the library is there, and if not, issues a message like
configure: error: libpsl libs and/or directories were not found where specified!
But you get this even when didn't specify a location and even your system
(pkg-config) didn't specify one. The location that failed was just
configure's imagination.
This would be less misleading if it said "not found where expected" instead
of "not found where specified." Better still would be if it said explicitly
that the package was not known to 'pkg-config' and not found in a standard
location and suggested a --withXXX=PATH or --withoutXXX option.
-- Bryan Henderson Omak, Washington -- Unsubscribe: https://lists.haxx.se/mailman/listinfo/curl-library Etiquette: https://curl.se/mail/etiquette.htmlReceived on 2026-07-11