freebsd library loading question

[Jim]

I'm hoping this is the right place to ask: I'm working on something in
FreeBSD 7.0 (i386) and GCC:

I'm getting the following error when executing a program:
      dlerror -> Invalid shared object handle 0x0

the full context is:
      DEBUG: ../include/ctypeless_dyn_unix.h(00310) ->Loading library:
ctypeless.so
      Error loading ctypeless library: -1
        dlerror -> Invalid shared object handle 0x0

which comes from the lines:
  int ret = 0;
  if(!dlname)
    dlname = "ctypeless.so";
  CT_DEBUG1("Loading library: %s\n\n", dlname);
  void *dlhandle = dlopen(dlname, RTLD_NOW | RTLD_GLOBAL);
  if(dlerror())
  {
    printf("Error loading ctypeless library: %d\n  dlerror -> %s\n",
test, dlerror());
    return -1;
  }


Am I correct in assuming this is because the program is not finding
the library? I tried putting the ctypeless.so library in
/usr/local/lib, but that did not fix the issue.

Any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong (or a better place to ask)?

Thanks,
-Jim Stapleton