Linux software installation - override version of library in ./configure

Question

I'm trying to install the software TinyOWS on a Linux computer. The source code is written in C programming language. I don't have much experience with installing C or C++ programs from source code on Linux. I read installation instructions, and it says that I must follow 3 steps after I unzip the source code folder:

./configure
make
make install

When I run ./configure, I get the following error:

checking for xml2-config... /usr/bin/xml2-config
checking for libxml2 version... 2.7.6
configure: error: You need at least libxml 2.8.0

This means that the software being installed requires version 2.8.0 of a library called libxml2 but my computer only has the 2.7.6 version. Unfortunately I found out that I cannot easily install the libxml 2.8.0 on my Linux distribution. The reason why the software TinyOWS that I'm trying to install requires libxml2.8.0 of the library is because libxml2.7.6 has a small bug. But most of the functionality of the software is not affected by the bug.

So, here is my question: What files do I have to edit or what command line options do I need to use If I want the ./configure command to use the library libxml2.7.6 instead of libxml2.8.0?

Answer 1

Get the source, in the file configure.in replace the line:

AC_MSG_ERROR([You need at least libxml 2.8.0])

By

AC_MSG_NOTICE([You need at least libxml 2.8.0])

Then, do:

autoreconf -f -i -s
./configure
make

The configure step will not stop. But i think if the developpers have restricted this version of libxml2 there must be a good reason.