How to use SOCI C++ Database library?

Question

I'm trying to implement soci in my program but I don't know how. I'm using C++ on Linux, on a project using netbeans. I have followed the steps in: http://soci.sourceforge.net/doc/structure.html to install it, and I tried to copy the files soci.h from /src/core and soci-mysql.h from /src/backends/mysql in my project but it gives a compilation error (these files include other soci files, but it's illogical to copy all files into the directory...). I have read the guide several time but I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. The examples only include these files.

Thanks.

Edit: I have given more information in a comment below the answer. I don't know what steps I have to follow to implement soci.

Answer 1

The relevant bit on that page is

When the configure script is run without parameters, the remaining part of the process will use /usr/local/include/soci as a default destination for SOCI header files and /usr/local/lib as a default destination for library files

Now /usr/local/include ought to be in your default include path (e.g. try something like gcc -c -v -x c++ /dev/null -o /dev/null to see the list your install uses) and so you can include these using

#include <soci/soci.h>
#include <soci/soci-mysql.h>

You then need to add the libraries to your link step. It looks like you'll have both static and shared versions of the libraries. You'll need to add -lsoci_core -lsoci_mysql to your link step; however if that doesn't work then you'll also need to specify /usr/local/lib as a search directory i.e. -L/usr/local/lib -lsoci_core -lsoci_mysql. (Again it's probably there already but you can see using gcc -print-search-dirs.) However, the issue then is that if you're using the shared version and /usr/local/lib isn't in your distributions library search path (see /etc/ld.so.conf and/or /etc/ld.so.conf.d/*) then it won't be able to find the shared library at runtime. You'll need to either hard-code in the path to the library with the linker switch -rpath or add /usr/local/lib to the system-wide search path as before or in your environment (variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH). I'm not sure what the best way to do this is - I'd suggest -rpath to avoid modifying the system in general, although if you're building a lot of libraries into /usr/local/lib it might make sense to add it.