Package: libhdf5-dev Version: 1.8.16+docs-8+b1 Severity: normal Hi.
The libhdf5-dev package ships a single .pc file: hdf5-serial.pc, which contains Libs: -L/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/hdf5/serial -lhdf5 This serves to link in the C interface to the HDF5 library by adding to the LDLIBS in GNU Make: $(shell pkg-config --libs hdf5-serial) If, however, you have a project that uses the C++ interface, then you need something uglier: $(shell pkg-config --libs-only-L hdf5-serial) -lhdf5_cpp This is also bad because it goes against the whole purpose of pkg-config: the user now has to know about the internal layout of the package. It looks like we have 6 flavors of shared objects for hdf5-serial: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/hdf5/serial/libhdf5.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/hdf5/serial/libhdf5_cpp.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/hdf5/serial/libhdf5_fortran.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/hdf5/serial/libhdf5_hl.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/hdf5/serial/libhdf5_hl_cpp.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/hdf5/serial/libhdf5hl_fortran.so Would it make sense to ship a .pc file for each one? Thanks!