package compiler and linker metadata toolkit

Go to file

William Pitcock 07d784c36a COPYING: it's 2012 now		2012-04-30 05:46:47 +00:00
m4	Initial commit.	2011-07-24 21:03:17 -05:00
scripts	Add makerelease.	2011-07-25 17:06:11 -05:00
.gitignore	ignore generated files	2012-04-30 05:24:08 +00:00
AUTHORS	Initial commit.	2011-07-24 21:03:17 -05:00
COPYING	COPYING: it's 2012 now	2012-04-30 05:46:47 +00:00
Makefile	Install a copy of pkg.m4 into aclocal like pkg-config does.	2012-04-30 05:43:46 +00:00
README.md	Convert README to markdown format.	2012-04-30 05:32:49 +00:00
autogen.sh	Initial commit.	2011-07-24 21:03:17 -05:00
buildsys.mk.in	Initial commit.	2011-07-24 21:03:17 -05:00
config.guess	Add config.sub and config.guess.	2011-07-24 23:26:24 -05:00
config.sub	Add config.sub and config.guess.	2011-07-24 23:26:24 -05:00
configure.ac	pkgconf 0.1.1.	2011-07-25 17:14:44 -05:00
install-sh	add install-sh	2011-07-24 23:24:10 -05:00
main.c	main: add --digraph option to generate a representation of the depgraph in graphviz dot format	2011-07-26 20:37:19 -05:00
parse.c	Make pkg_find() follow the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environmental variable, if available.	2012-01-15 19:03:54 -06:00
pkg.c	fix handling of length with strncat	2012-04-30 05:24:10 +00:00
pkg.h	include ctype.h for isspace/etc...	2012-04-30 05:24:05 +00:00
pkg.m4	Install a copy of pkg.m4 into aclocal like pkg-config does.	2012-04-30 05:43:46 +00:00

README.md

pkgconf

pkgconf provides compiler and linker configuration for development frameworks.

general summary

pkgconf is a program which helps to configure compiler and linker flags for development frameworks. It is similar to pkg-config, but was written from scratch in Summer of 2011 to replace pkg-config, which now needs itself to build itself (or you can set a bunch of environment variables, both are pretty ugly.)

Implementations of pkg-config, such as pkgconf are typically used with the PKG_CHECK_MODULES autoconf macro. As far as I (nenolod) know, pkgconf is compatible with all known variations of this macro. However, I have not extensively tested yet for compatibility. pkgconf detects at runtime whether or not it was started as 'pkg-config', and if so, attempts to set program options in a way where it's behaviour should be similar.

In terms of the autoconf macro, it is possible to specify the PKG_CONFIG environment variable, so that you can test pkgconf without overwriting your pkg-config binary. (hint: export PKG_CONFIG=/usr/bin/pkgconf) However, if you do this, it will be running in native mode, so you may have some very strange results as the dependency graph is compiled differently in native mode.

technical design

pkgconf builds an acyclic directed dependency graph. This 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. As a result of building a directed dependency graph designed for the specific problem domain provided by the user, more accurate dependencies can be determined. pkg-config, on the other hand builds a database of all known pkg-config files on the system before attempting to resolve dependencies, which is a considerably slower and less efficient design.

pkgconf also does not provide support for pointlessly stupid features implemented in pkg-config.

compiling

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

$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

reporting bugs

see https://github.com/nenolod/pkgconf/issues.