Packaging dependencies and build dependencies are tracked separately. For example, if I don't have a C compiler installed, installing a development package like

Packaging dependencies and build dependencies are tracked separately. For example, if I don't have a C compiler installed, installing a development package like "libxml2-devel" will probably cause the compiler to be installed. In the opposite case, say that I have the compiler installed, but not the dev package for the library. Compiling an object will fail, if it #includes a required header, but that will be in the form of a "file not found" error emitted by the compiler. Similarly, if I tried to link a program and include the "-lxml2" flag, the linker will reply "cannot find -lxml2", meaning that libxml2 isn't installed, so it can't be linked against. Generally, we'd say that it's not the compiler or linker's job to talk to the package manager. The build configuration system included with the project (autoconf scripts, cmake or ant profiles, etc) ought to check for prerequisites.