Re: pkg-config wisdom

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   > I imagine that pkg-config has not been integrated into Autoconf
   > because it does not fit well into the Autoconf philosophy.

   I use pkg-config quite heavily in one of my projects, I'm just
   wondering is there a more "autoconf" way of performing the same
   task as I constantly run into different problems related to finding
   flags etc.. using pkg-config.

The way is to simply not use pkg-config, and use AC_CHECK_* functions
to find what is needed; and let the user specify where/what, using
*FLAGS.


pkg-config tries to solve an important problem, but it does so in the
wrong way.  pkg-config checks for an exact library name, and
optionally exact version numbers.  A similar library can exist with
the same API, but with different name and version, in which case any
checks done by PKG_CHECK_* during configure will fail.

Autoconf works by testing specific features, hence why it doesn't fit
with the autoconf philosophy.