How can I specify the location of one file for program configuration without specifying the location for all C compilers in Unix?

Question

I am trying to compile a program called Clustal Omega on my Unix operating system. I do not have root access. Clustal Omega requires argtable2 to compile. I installed argtable2 in my home/user/bin/ and the Clustal Omega installation instructions suggest I use:

./configure CFLAGS='~/bin/argtable2-13/include'

Which specifies the location of the argtable2.h file.

However, when I run this I get an error because it tries to retrieve gcc and g++ C compilers from that location as well, when actually they are in the root/bin/ which I cannot edit.

I've tried:

./configure CC='/opt/apps/gcc/6.3.0/bin/gcc' CXX='/opt/apps/gcc/6.3.0/bin/g++' CFLAGS='~/bin/argtable2-13/include'

and

./configure CFLAGS='~/bin/argtable2-13/include' LDFLAGS='~/bin/argtable2-13/lib'

which was suggested elsewhere. Neither are able to complete configuration.

How can I specify the location of the argtable2-13 required files without specifying the location of all the C compilers?

Thanks, everyone, but the following did not work either:

./configure CPPFLAGS='~/bin/argtable2-13/include'

./configure --with-argtable2.h='~/bin/argtable2-13/include'

./configure --with-argtable2='~/bin/argtable2-13/include'

./configure CFLAGS='-I ~/bin/argtable2-13/include'

Not sure if this is the right thing to put in but I don't know which program to request --help from?

The error is:

checking argtable2.h presence... no 
checking for argtable2.h... no 
configure: error: Could not find argtable2.h. Try $ ./configure CFLAGS='-Iyour-argtable2-include-path

Answer 1

There are two main issues:

1. CFLAGS needs to be the flags you want to add (not just the directory). Similarly for LDFLAGS .

2. Shell expansions (tilda prefix in this case) are not performed on the strings passed to configure . Use expanded path.

Combining that the configure command should be:

./configure CFLAGS="-I /home/<username>/bin/include" LDFLAGS="-L /home/<username>/bin/lib"