Error with Python 2.3 as a shared Library

[Francisco Miguel Montenegro Montes]

Hi, perhaps some of you can help me...

I'm installing Python 2.3 (in Linux RedHat 8.0) and I need to build it
like a shared library, because I want to interact
Python with PostgreSQL. Following the README instructions, I try:

../configure --enable-shared --prefix=/whatever (I'm not root of my
system, so I can't use /usr/local/)
make
make install

it seems to be ok, without errors. And when I try :

/whatever/bin/python

it says:

whatever/bin/python error while loading shared libraries:
libpython2.3.so.1.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or
directory

but this library (libpython2.3.so.1.0 ) is in the whatever/lib directory.

What's wrong? Is it something related to the path? How can I tell python
where the library is? Or is it not the problem?

Thanks.

 

[Kiyo Kelvin Lee]

You need to add /whatever/lib to the path for searching .so files.
If you are root, normally you may edit /etc/ld.so.conf to add the path permanently.
If you are not root, you can set the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH:

for sh: export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/whatever/lib
for csh: setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /whatever/lib

or simply use the env command:

env LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/whatever/lib python

Note that this is nothing special to python but normal behaviour of Linux or Linux like operating systems including many Unices.

Regards,
Kiyo