README: expand on the pkg-config compatibility promise
pkgconf 1.7.4.
path: don't use PATH_MAX, use PKGCONF_ITEM_SIZE * 4 for realpath buffer
pkgconf
is a program which helps to configure compiler and linker flags for
development libraries. It is similar to pkg-config from freedesktop.org.
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.
pkgconf
with autotoolsImplementations of pkg-config, such as pkgconf, are typically used with the PKG_CHECK_MODULES autoconf macro. As far as we know, pkgconf is compatible with all known variations of this macro. pkgconf detects at runtime whether or not it was started as 'pkg-config', and if so, attempts to set program options such that its behaviour is 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. Some other build systems may also respect the PKG_CONFIG environment variable.
To set the environment variable on the bourne shell and clones (i.e. bash), you can run:
$ export PKG_CONFIG=/usr/bin/pkgconf
pkgconf
and pkg-config
dependency resolverspkgconf 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.
Current release versions of pkg-config, on the other hand, build 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. Efforts have been made recently to improve this behaviour.
As of the 1.1 series, pkgconf also fully implements support for Provides
rules,
while pkg-config does not. pkg-config only provides the --print-provides
functionality
as a stub. There are other intentional implementation differences in pkgconf's dependency
resolver verses pkg-config's dependency resolver in terms of completeness and correctness,
such as, for example, how Conflicts
rules are processed.
As previously mentioned, pkgconf makes optimizations to the linker flags in both the
case of static and shared linking in order to avoid overlinking binaries and also
simplifies the CFLAGS
and LIBS
output of the pkgconf tool for improved readability.
This functionality depends on the pkg-config module properly declaring it's dependency
tree instead of using Libs
and Cflags
fields to directly link against other modules
which have pkg-config metadata files installed.
Doing so is discouraged by the freedesktop tutorial anyway.
I really hate that I have to have this section, I like being a nice person, but we unfortunately have to say this because otherwise we get passive-aggressive people who try to argue with us about what pkg-config compatibility means.
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, as most likely fixing them to follow the specified rules will solve the problem.
Additionally, we do not consider pkgconf doing what you tell it to do, when pkg-config fails to do so, to be a bug.
If, for example, you use environment variables such as PKG_CONFIG_SYSTEM_[INCLUDE|LIBRARY]_PATH
and then find yourself surprised that pkgconf
is stripping -I
and -L
flags relating
to those paths, it's not a pkgconf
problem -- pkgconf
is doing exactly what you told
it to do.
We will reject bugs like this, and if you choose to violate our Code of Conduct by demanding we fix your non-bug, we will fix the problem by banning you from the repo instead.
pkgconf
and libpkgconf
on UNIXpkgconf 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
pkgconf
and libpkgconf
with CMake (usually for Windows)pkgconf is compiled using CMake on Windows. In theory, you could also use CMake to build on UNIX, but this is not recommended at this time as it pkgconf is typically built much earlier than CMake.
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..
$ make
$ sudo make install
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.
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
Release tarballs are available at https://distfiles.dereferenced.org/pkgconf/. Please only use the tarballs from distfiles.dereferenced.org.
You can report bugs at https://todo.sr.ht/~kaniini/pkgconf.
There is a mailing list at https://lists.sr.ht/~kaniini/pkgconf.
You can contact us via IRC at #pkgconf
at irc.freenode.net
.