Building on Unix with git, gcc and autotools Home page for json-c: https://github.com/json-c/json-c/wiki Caution: do NOT use sources from svn.metaparadigm.com, they are old. Prerequisites: gcc (or another C compiler) libtool If you're not using a release tarball, you'll also need: autoconf (autoreconf) automake Make sure you have a complete libtool install, including libtoolize Github repo for json-c: https://github.com/json-c/json-c $ git clone https://github.com/json-c/json-c.git $ cd json-c $ sh autogen.sh Then $ ./configure $ make $ make install To build and run the test programs run $ make check Linking to libjson-c If your system has pkgconfig then you can just add this to your makefile CFLAGS += $(shell pkg-config --cflags json-c) LDFLAGS += $(shell pkg-config --libs json-c) Without pkgconfig, you would do something like this: JSON_C_DIR=/path/to/json_c/install CFLAGS += -I$(JSON_C_DIR)/include/json-c LDFLAGS+= -L$(JSON_C_DIR)/lib -ljson-c