How can I link to an older version of a shared library

I’m building my program on my computer, on which libtiff.so -> libtiff.so.5. And then pushing the builds on another machine on which libtiff.so -> libtiff.so.4.

At runtime, my program exists : « error while loading shared libraries: libtiff.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory ».

I cannot upgrade the other machine, and I would like to avoid compiling on a virtual machine (with the same linux version than the executing machine). Therefore, I would like to force the compiler to use the libtiff.so.4 instead of libtiff.so.5.

I have libtiff.so.4 installed on my computer (as well as libtiff.so.5). How can I force the linkage with this version instead of the newer version. I thought about moving the libtiff.so -> libtiff.so.4, but I’m afraid of breaking my system if it needs the latest version (apt-get purge libtiff5 gives an error because some other package needs it).

Is it possible to link with an older (installed) version of a library? If yes, how? And is it harmfull to change the symbolic link of libtiff.so to the older version? If not, will it solve my issue?

Answer

You can use this syntax to link to a specific version of a library:

gcc [other options] -l:libtiff.so.4

You do not need to specify a path; the usual directories are searched in order to find the library.

Note: as Michael Wild mentioned, you should have the header files for that version installed instead of the newest ones.