[Sdl] building the tests without installing

Is there a reasonable way to build the tests without installing a build?
Would it work to just have -I/include and
-L/build/.libs -Wl,-rpath

Essentially, I just want to build the tests and confirm working behavior
before I install.

I tried:
PATH=…:$PATH ./configure --bindir=$SDL --includedir=/usr/local/obj/SDL-svn-4175/include/ --libdir=/usr/local/obj/SDL-svn-4175/build/.libs/
and various flavors of that (with no luck)

Also, SDL_GetVersion may return the SVN version (and perhaps other informatoin
about the build – perhaps compiler options, date, etc) – this may be
especially useful for SVN versions.

marty