install python to custom prefix with custom library directories

[Poor Yorick]

Today I needed to install python from source on linux to a custom path.  /usr/lib/libtk8.3.so existed, but I wanted python to link to /my/custom/path/lib/libtk8.4.so.

I had LDFLAGS set:

LDFLAGS="-L/my/custom/path/lib -Wl,-rpath,$base/lib -Wl,--enable-new-dtags"

configure looked like this:

./configure --prefix=/my/custom/path/python-2.5.1 --enable-shared

but python always linked against /usr/lib/libtk8.3.so instead of libtk8.4.so

I ended up modifying setup.py (see below) but there must be a more user-friendly way to do this.  Right?  Thank you for your time!

BTW, I don't have root access on this machine

--- setup.py.original   2007-07-17 12:51:27 -04:00
+++ setup.py    2007-07-17 13:21:57 -04:00
@@ -293,10 +293,14 @@
         # lib_dirs and inc_dirs are used to search for files;
         # if a file is found in one of those directories, it can
         # be assumed that no additional -I,-L directives are needed.
+        self.compiler.library_dirs.insert(0,
+        '/my/custom/path/lib')
         lib_dirs = self.compiler.library_dirs + [
             '/lib64', '/usr/lib64',
             '/lib', '/usr/lib',
             ]
+        self.compiler.include_dirs.insert(0,
+        '/my/custom/path/include')
         inc_dirs = self.compiler.include_dirs + ['/usr/include']
         exts = []

-- 
Poor Yorick