On Sun, 2003-09-21 at 22:38, David Dawes wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 21, 2003 at 09:06:43PM -0500, Warren Turkal wrote:
> >David Dawes wrote:
> >> I think you have your perspective backwards. Autotools is supposed to
> >> handle system differences for the software package, not impose
> >> requirements
> >> on the underlying system.
> >
> >Autotools do not require pkg-config. It just makes autotools significantly
> >easier to implement in a portable way for libs.
> >
> >> X libraries are already installed on countless
> >> systems, and they're not going to magically acquire .pc files just
> >> because you say you need them. If an autotooled package requires them,
> >> the autotooled package is broken.
> >
> >Autotools do not require them...pkg-config just makes autoconf work a lot
> >easier. I could write custom autoconf macros that test for Xrender in
> >common locations, or we could put pkg-config support in and it would not
> >have to guess. The .pc files tell it where to find the libs.
>
> I'd love to see your time machine. Dunno how else you're going to avoid
> writing those custom autoconf macros :-).
Well, to some extent, I think the goal is that in 5 years people aren't
*still* saying "if you had a time machine, and could put those .pc files
in 5 years ago..."
It's also possible to make macros that have fallback checks simpler and
more reliable for systems that *do* have the .pc files, and to fall back
to the old methods only where the .pc files don't exist.
Finally, while autoconf includes macros for -lX11, there are lots of
other libraries that XFree86 ships where there are no standard autoconf
macros (libXv, libXxf86misc, and so forth.) .pc files for these would
have considerable utility.
One more thing to mention is that pkg-config is often useful
when compiling on the command line or in one off make files.
gcc -o mytest mytest.c `pkg-config --libs --cflags x11`
Is, if not easier to type, easier to remember, than specifying
the flags (-L/usr/X11R6/lib -lX11 -lm, usually, for XFree86,
if it's installed in the standard location) manually.
Regards,
Owen
_______________________________________________
Devel mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
