Re: pkg-config wisdom

[William Pursell]

Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
> 
> pkg-config tries to solve an important problem, but it does so in the
> wrong way.  pkg-config checks for an exact library name, 

PKG_CHECK_MODULES does not check for a library name at all,
but for the name of the .pc file.  This gives the administrator
one extra level of indirection.

AC_CHECK_LIB 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.

Only if the author of configure.ac uses the option to check for
a version number.  PKG_CHECK_MODULES can be used without
an explicit version number check, and many people do
explicit version number checks without pkg-config, so this
is not a compelling argument against pkg-config.

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

I think that's invalid.  pkg-config does provide the option to
do an explicit version check, but it is the maintainer that
exercises that option that is departing from the autoconf
philosophy.


-- 
William Pursell