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Difficult for users to figure out how to specify dependency locations

See original GitHub issue

When a user is trying to build a repository using meson, starting with something meson setup build_dir, and meson reports certain missing dependencies - the user may need to download and build those dependencies if they are unavailable as part of their OS distribution. However, once that is done, the user needs to be able to tell meson “take package foo from /path/to/foo”.

Now,

  • The meson binary does not tell the user how to specify a custom package location (for foo or a dependency in general)
  • meson help and meson help setup do not say how to specify a custom package location.
  • The man meson page does not say how to specify a custom package location.
  • The meson reference manual does not say how to specify a custom package location - specifically, the FAQ or the “How do I do X with meson” sections don’t tell you that.

Expected behavior

Users, who are not themselves fluet with meson and just want to build stuff which uses meson, should be able to easily access this information, which is necessary in a very common scenario.

I should mention that when CMake fails to locate a dependency, it gives you an error message which includes “quick & dirty” instructions on how to tell it to find the dependency if you actually have it.

System parameters

My own system is irrelevant, but since I mentioned the meson binary and man page…

  • Devuan GNU/Linux Beowulf
  • meson 0.49.2

Issue Analytics

  • State:open
  • Created 2 years ago
  • Comments:9 (4 by maintainers)

github_iconTop GitHub Comments

1reaction
eyalrozcommented, Mar 26, 2021

Oh, I should mention that adding paths to PKG_CONFIG_PATH is not enough, because one also needs to make sure that associated paths are visible after installation for dynamic loading, with LD_LIBRARY_PATH. And perhaps there are other ancillary settings to make.

0reactions
tkirchercommented, Apr 19, 2021

Yeah, blew away the build dir every time, also tried configuration options like -Dlibdir=/usr/local/lib. Even when I made sure all the .pc files had no mention of /usr/lib, meson seemed to find it first. 😄

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