Data

Tools

Indexes

Applications

Experiments

Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf

package compiler and linker metadata toolkit
https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf

Last synced: about 1 month ago
JSON representation

package compiler and linker metadata toolkit

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

          
# pkgconf [![test](https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf/actions/workflows/test.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf/actions/workflows/test.yml)



`pkgconf` is a program which helps to configure compiler and linker flags for

development libraries.  It is a superset of the functionality provided by

pkg-config from freedesktop.org, but does not provide bug-compatibility with

the original pkg-config.



`libpkgconf` is a library which provides access to most of `pkgconf`'s functionality, 

to allow other tooling such as compilers and IDEs to discover and use libraries 

configured by pkgconf.



## release tarballs



Release tarballs are available on [distfiles.ariadne.space][distfiles].



   [distfiles]: https://distfiles.ariadne.space/pkgconf/



## build system setup



If you would like to use the git sources directly, or a snapshot of the

sources from GitHub, you will need to regenerate the autotools build

system artifacts yourself, or use Meson instead.  For example, on Alpine:



    $ apk add autoconf automake libtool build-base

    $ sh ./autogen.sh



## pkgconf-lite



If you only need the original pkg-config functionality, there is also pkgconf-lite,

which builds the `pkgconf` frontend and relevant portions of `libpkgconf` functionality

into a single binary:



    $ make -f Makefile.lite



## why `pkgconf` over original `pkg-config`?



pkgconf builds a flattened directed dependency graph, which allows for more insight

into relationships between dependencies, allowing for some link-time dependency

optimization, which allows for the user to more conservatively link their binaries,

which may be helpful in some environments, such as when prelink(1) is being used.



The solver is also optimized to handle large dependency graphs with hundreds of

thousands of edges, which can be seen in any project using the Abseil frameworks

for example.



In addition, pkgconf has full support for virtual packages, while the original

pkg-config does not, as well as fully supporting `Conflicts` at dependency

resolution time, which is more efficient than checking for `Conflicts` while

walking the dependency graph.



## linker flags optimization



pkgconf, when used effectively, can make optimizations to avoid overlinking binaries.



This functionality depends on the pkg-config module properly declaring its dependency

tree instead of using `Libs` and `Cflags` fields to directly link against other modules

which have pkg-config metadata files installed.



The practice of using `Libs` and `Cflags` to describe unrelated dependencies is

not recommended in [Dan Nicholson's pkg-config tutorial][fd-tut] for this reason.



   [fd-tut]: http://people.freedesktop.org/~dbn/pkg-config-guide.html



## bug compatibility with original pkg-config



In general, we do not provide bug-level compatibility with pkg-config.



What that means is, if you feel that there is a legitimate regression versus pkg-config,

do let us know, but also make sure that the .pc files are valid and follow the rules of

the [pkg-config tutorial][fd-tut], as most likely fixing them to follow the specified

rules will solve the problem.



## debug output



Please use only the stable interfaces to query pkg-config.  Do not screen-scrape the

output from `--debug`: this is sent to `stderr` for a reason, it is not intended to be

scraped.  The `--debug` output is **not** a stable interface, and should **never** be

depended on as a source of information.  If you need a stable interface to query pkg-config

which is not covered, please get in touch.



## compiling `pkgconf` and `libpkgconf` on UNIX



pkgconf is basically compiled the same way any other autotools-based project is

compiled:



    $ ./configure

    $ make

    $ sudo make install



If you are installing pkgconf into a custom prefix, such as `/opt/pkgconf`, you will

likely want to define the default system includedir and libdir for your toolchain.

To do this, use the `--with-system-includedir` and `--with-system-libdir` configure

flags like so:



    $ ./configure \

         --prefix=/opt/pkgconf \

         --with-system-libdir=/lib:/usr/lib \

         --with-system-includedir=/usr/include

    $ make

    $ sudo make install



## compiling `pkgconf` and `libpkgconf` with Meson (usually for Windows)



pkgconf is compiled using [Meson](https://mesonbuild.com) on Windows. In theory, you could also use

Meson to build on UNIX, but this is not recommended at this time as pkgconf is typically built

much earlier than Meson.



    $ meson setup build -Dtests=disabled

    $ meson compile -C build

    $ meson install -C build



There are a few defines such as `SYSTEM_LIBDIR`, `PKGCONFIGDIR` and `SYSTEM_INCLUDEDIR`.

However, on Windows, the default `PKGCONFIGDIR` value is usually overridden at runtime based

on path relocation.



## pkg-config symlink



If you want pkgconf to be used when you invoke `pkg-config`, you should install a

symlink for this.  We do not do this for you, as we believe it is better for vendors

to make this determination themselves.



    $ ln -sf pkgconf /usr/bin/pkg-config



## contacts



You can report bugs at .



There is a mailing list at .



You can contact us via IRC at `#pkgconf` at `irc.oftc.net`.