What is the best way to organize my C project code and its external libraries? [closed]

Answer 1

First, for external libraries I would use vendor, but that's just a preference.

Second, I don't think it is a good idea to install other libraries in a system root, without the users knowledge. Most importantly because this will conflict with later installed versions of those libraries. So I think the best place for these libraries would be in the same directory as your application.

You could also statically compile these libraries into your program.

Answer 2

We use something with the _ext or _EXT suffix (i.e MyProject_EXT) to signify that it is external to our project to store the source code of external packages that we link against.

I agree with Peter. The external libraries should be not be built into the system root as they may cause conflicts. I'd build them in their directory and then install them into a /lib directory (or maybe /extlib) that is unique to your application and link to them there.

Answer 3

Please don't ship third party sources with your code, either in the source or linked statically into the binaries, or any other way. That will just interfere with other copies of the same, and won't get updated when the library requires fixing. Do tell the user what the requirements are (and keep up with API changes in the library!). A self-compiling user will make sure to get the dependencies, a distribution will make sure your package works with the version that they ship.

Answer 4

At a previous job, the standard was to install them in a directory named 3rdparty and build the libraries right there (in 3rdparty/LIBNAME/Debug, etc.).