MAC OS: dynamically linked library not found despite correct rpath

Question

I have a (relatively) big project C++ that compiles and runs fine on ubuntu (using cmake/catkin). It compiles fine on mac os, but when trying to start the executable, I get the error message:

dyld: Library not loaded: <name of library>.dylib
  Referenced from:
  <path to executable>/<executable>
Reason: image not found

When running the command:

otool -l <executable> | grep LC_RPATH -A2

I get the output:

      cmd LC_RPATH
  cmdsize 64
     path <correct absolute path to folder containing library> (offset 12)

      cmd LC_RPATH
  cmdsize 24
     path /sw/lib (offset 12)

      cmd LC_RPATH
  cmdsize 32
     path /usr/X11/lib (offset 12)

      cmd LC_RPATH
  cmdsize 32
     path /opt/local/lib (offset 12)

      cmd LC_RPATH
  cmdsize 32
     path /opt/X11/lib (offset 12)

It is very unclear to me why the library is not found. Running:

otool -L <executable>

prints:

<executable name>:
    <library name>.dylib (compatibility version 0.0.0, current version 0.0.0)
    /usr/lib/libedit.3.dylib (compatibility version 2.0.0, current version 3.0.0)
    /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib (compatibility version 5.4.0, current version 5.4.0)
    /opt/X11/lib/libglut.3.dylib (compatibility version 13.0.0, current version 13.0.0)
    /opt/X11/lib/libGL.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.2.0, current version 1.2.0)
    /opt/X11/lib/libGLU.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.3.0, current version 1.3.0)
    /opt/X11/lib/libX11.6.dylib (compatibility version 10.0.0, current version 10.0.0)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1213.0.0)

which seems to confirm it does not get the right path.

Anything I am missing ?

ps:

not sure it is relevant, here the cmake commands I used: (from here)

# use, i.e. don't skip the full RPATH for the build tree
SET(CMAKE_SKIP_BUILD_RPATH  FALSE)

# when building, don't use the install RPATH already
# (but later on when installing)
SET(CMAKE_BUILD_WITH_INSTALL_RPATH FALSE)

SET(CMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH "${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/lib/${MACHTYPE}")

# add the automatically determined parts of the RPATH
# which point to directories outside the build tree to the install RPATH
SET(CMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH_USE_LINK_PATH TRUE)

# the RPATH to be used when installing, but only if it's not a system directory
LIST(FIND CMAKE_PLATFORM_IMPLICIT_LINK_DIRECTORIES "${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/lib/${MACHTYPE}" isSystemDir)
IF("${isSystemDir}" STREQUAL "-1")
    SET(CMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH "${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/lib/${MACHTYPE}")
ENDIF("${isSystemDir}" STREQUAL "-1")

Answer 1

Answer came from a comment from here

I need to use @rpath

Actually Mac OS X does have the concept of rpath. Previous to 10.4 there was only @executable_path which pointed to the location of the executable binary (as opposed to any dylibs that it loaded). @loader_path was introduced in 10.4 which allowed dylibs to load dependencies based on their location (and not on the location of the executable - who knows what's using the library).

With 10.5 apple introduced @rpath which is baked into the loading binary - executable or library. So instead of seeing: @loader_path/../../Library/Frameworks/blah.dylib you might see @rpath/Library/Frameworks/blah.dylib

Which means if the rpath is set to . and / it would look at ./Library/Frameworks/blah.dylib and then /Library/Frameworks/blah.dylib for any libraries.