use ExtUtils::Liblist; my @vars = ExtUtils::Liblist->ext( '-L/sw/lib -ltidy', 0, 1 ); my $libs = $vars[2]; WriteMakefile( NAME => 'HTML::Tidy', # ... LIBS => [$libs], NEEDS_LINKING => 1, INC => '-I. -I/usr/include/tidy -I/usr/local/include/tidy -I/sw/include/tidy', EXE_FILES => [qw(bin/webtidy)], );