I set the rpath with gcc in MYSYS2 when compiling, but the program can't find it when running, so why?

Question

In my working directory there are main.c and a folder named lib with libtest.dll in it.

I use

$ gcc main.c -ltest -L ./lib -Wl,-rpath=./lib

to compile, and the compilation process is no problem (no warning and error). But when i run a.exe the system remind

D:/MYSY2/home/user/code/a.exe: error while loading shared libraries: libtest.dll: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

So why the library can be found when compiling but not when running?

Answer 1

Shared libraries on Windows are .dll files and the are located by looking in the same folder as the running .exe file, or if that doesn't work by looking in the locations specified by the PATH environment variable.

So the best solution is to copy the .dll file(s) in the same location as the .exe file(s).

For distribution of your application you can use copypedeps -r from https://github.com/brechtsanders/pedeps to copy the .exe file along with any dependency .dll files, in case you are not certain which files are needed.