Re: pkg-config wisdom

[Ben Pfaff]

"Murray S. Kucherawy" <address@hidden> writes:

> What's the current general wisdom on using the pkg-config
> extensions?  I presume there's a reason they've not been
> incorporated into basic autoconf, so I'm keen to learn what
> common practices there are toward adopting it into people's
> builds (or avoiding it).

My specific negative experience is that people run Autoconf
without having pkg-config installed, which fails mysteriously
when the "configure" script runs.  So I recommend also adding
        m4_pattern_forbid([PKG_CHECK_MODULES])
in your configure.ac, so that running "autoconf" itself will fail
in a more transparent manner if pkg-config is not installed
properly.

I imagine that pkg-config has not been integrated into Autoconf
because it does not fit well into the Autoconf philosophy.
-- 
"Long noun chains don't automatically imply security."
--Bruce Schneier