Re: PKG_CHECK_MODULES on system without pkg-config installed?

[Dave Hart]

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 10:02 UTC, Jef Driesen <address@hidden> wrote:
> I'm aware of the advantage of using pkg-config. I even supply the *.pc
> files for my own projects. But the point is that if I want to support systems
> that don't have pkg-config installed (like Mac OS X in my case), I have to
> provide a fallback with manual detection anyway.

But you are not everyone.  In some cases, the use of the library is
optional, or there is a bundled copy of the library used when an
installed one isn't found via pkg-config.  It's reasonable to provide
no fallback probing for an installed headers and libs -- you just
proceed without or substitute.

> So why not skip pkg-config entirely?

Personally, I want to never write any more manual detection code when
pkg-config will do the job.  I'm also a big fan of the way
PKG_CONFIG_PATH lets me customize my choices as a user of a system
which is shared with and administered by others.  The staff likes a 6
year old version of openssl with backported patches as of three years
ago, which triggers compiler warnings that modern openssl headers
don't?  I love that I can install a newer openssl in my homedir and
arrange my PKG_CONFIG_PATH to find my openssl before the decrepit one,
for packages that respect any openssl.pc found via pkg-config.  I
could get by without pkg-config, but it would mean specifying extra
configure options repeatedly to point to my local openssl.  pkg-config
lets me enshrine that preference once and get on with more important
things than remember which combination of overrides I need at
configure time.

Cheers,
Dave Hart