Created attachment 287295 [details]
This is right configured libxml2

Hi,
I got some troubles to compile libxml2 2.9.1 on HP-UX 11.31 with native compiler with enabled zlib support via --with-zlib=<path> mechanism but without installed zlib in system default /usr/lib. The main problem in AC_CHECK_LIB macro. It prepends searching library name before LIBS variable. LIBS was set correctly at the line 197 (where --with-zlib option is analyzing) but construction "-lz -L<correct path to zlib>/lib" returns library not found because there is no libz in my system path. If it would append serching library after LIBS, everything will fine. The same problem with --with-lzma option. Of course I can add correct path to CFLAGS or LDFLAGS environmant variables before calling configure but I think that the main problem in libxml's configure script because I specified the correct path to installed zlib.
My suggestion is add save, change and restore LDFLAGS before AC_CHECK_LIB call when functions gzread and lzma_code are searching inside action-if-found of AC_CHECK_HEADERS:

*** configure.in.back   2014-09-26 10:49:30.973018572 +0400
--- configure.in        2014-09-28 18:22:31.757395718 +0400
***************
*** 386,405 ****
      echo "Disabling compression support"
  else
      AC_CHECK_HEADERS(zlib.h,
!       AC_CHECK_LIB(z, gzread,[
!           AC_DEFINE([HAVE_LIBZ], [1], [Have compression library])
!           WITH_ZLIB=1
!           if test "x${Z_DIR}" != "x"; then
!               Z_CFLAGS="-I${Z_DIR}/include"
!               Z_LIBS="-L${Z_DIR}/lib -lz"
!               [case ${host} in
!                   *-*-solaris*)
!                       Z_LIBS="-L${Z_DIR}/lib -R${Z_DIR}/lib -lz"
!                       ;;
!               esac]
!           else
!               Z_LIBS="-lz"
!           fi]))
  fi
  
  AC_SUBST(Z_CFLAGS)
--- 386,409 ----
      echo "Disabling compression support"
  else
      AC_CHECK_HEADERS(zlib.h,
!                      [SAVE_LDFLAGS="${LDFLAGS}"
!                       LDFLAGS="-L${Z_DIR}/lib"
!                       AC_CHECK_LIB(z, gzread,
!                                    [AC_DEFINE([HAVE_LIBZ], [1], [Have compression library])
!                                     WITH_ZLIB=1
!                                     if test "x${Z_DIR}" != "x"
!                                     then
!                                         Z_CFLAGS="-I${Z_DIR}/include"
!                                         Z_LIBS="-L${Z_DIR}/lib -lz"
!                                         [case ${host} in
!                                             *-*-solaris*)
!                                                 Z_LIBS="-L${Z_DIR}/lib -R${Z_DIR}/lib -lz"
!                                                 ;;
!                                          esac]
!                                     else
!                                         Z_LIBS="-lz"
!                                     fi])
!                       LDFLAGS="${SAVE_LDFLAGS}"])
  fi
  
  AC_SUBST(Z_CFLAGS)
***************
*** 415,429 ****
      echo "Disabling compression support"
  else
      AC_CHECK_HEADERS(lzma.h,
!       AC_CHECK_LIB(lzma, lzma_code,[
!           AC_DEFINE([HAVE_LIBLZMA], [1], [Have compression library])
!           WITH_LZMA=1
!           if test "x${LZMA_DIR}" != "x"; then
!               LZMA_CFLAGS="-I${LZMA_DIR}/include"
!               LZMA_LIBS="-L${LZMA_DIR}/lib -llzma"
!           else
!               LZMA_LIBS="-llzma"
!           fi]))
  fi

  AC_SUBST(LZMA_CFLAGS)
--- 419,437 ----
      echo "Disabling compression support"
  else
      AC_CHECK_HEADERS(lzma.h,
!                      [SAVE_LDFLAGS="${LDFLAGS}"
!                       LDFLAGS="-L${LZMA_DIR}/lib"
!                       AC_CHECK_LIB(lzma, lzma_code,
!                                    [AC_DEFINE([HAVE_LIBLZMA], [1], [Have compression library])
!                                     WITH_LZMA=1
!                                     if test "x${LZMA_DIR}" != "x"
!                                     then
!                                         LZMA_CFLAGS="-I${LZMA_DIR}/include"
!                                         LZMA_LIBS="-L${LZMA_DIR}/lib -llzma"
!                                     else
!                                         LZMA_LIBS="-llzma"
!                                     fi])
!                       LDFLAGS="${SAVE_LDFLAGS}"])
  fi

  AC_SUBST(LZMA_CFLAGS)

Thanks, Dmitriy