can I run a self-contained build?

My approach to building & installing software usually follows a common
pattern to have different release versions in different directories and then
either just launch locally from one of those directories or use a symbolic
link to point to the current version. This allows me to quickly install or
rollback by simply changing the launch command or symbolic link. By
example, think of the following structure:

/home/user/Documents/squid/mybuild_v1
/home/user/Documents/squid/mybuild_v2
/home/user/Documents/squid/current -> ./mybuild_v2

This allows me to use either mybuild_v1 or mybuild_v2 or I can also still
use the default package build on the machine which gets installed in various
"standard" locations such as /etc/squid3, /usr/lib/squid3, etc. etc.

I just realized that squid appears to maintain some absolute path references
which don't seem to like my approach of a self-contained release folder. My
realization came from hitting a few errors like these when I moved the
top-level directory:

FATAL: MIME Config Table
/home/user/Documents/squid/mybuild_v1/etc/mime.conf: (2) No such file or
directory
FATAL: unlinkd_program
/home/user/Documents/squid/mybuild_v1/libexec/unlinkd: (2) No such file or
directory

I am now aware of the build configuration options for Ubuntu:

http://wiki.squid-cache.org/KnowledgeBase/Ubuntu#Compiling

One of those options sets --sysconfdir=/etc/squid and another sets
--libexecdir=${prefix}/lib/squid but those are absolute paths. I'm trying
to scan the source files to figure out where & how these configuration
options get used, but I'm worried that I may miss something so I feel it's
safer to ask for confirmation.

Is it possible to run from a self-contained build? Are there any run-time
options that mirror the functionality of the configuration options that can
be used when building? Or can I specify a configuration option path which
is relative to either the binaries or the configuration file?

Thanks in advance.

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