Re: [Anjuta-list] Newbie Question: Checking for Libs

[Erwan Becquet <becquet cnam fr>]

I totally agree with that,

I just want to add that all macros you can write to add specific checks are
m4 macros and usually stored in .m4 files. Autoconf site handle a good
list of such macros so far. They can be found at tha AutoConf Macro Archive
(http://www.gnu.org/software/ac-archive/index.html).

There is so far macros for checking c++ features (like 
namespaces,exceptions...)
c features, java, cross-compilation and a lot of packages : mysql, mico, 
apache,
perl, zlib, ssl ...

So, first, check here if your needed macros is not existing already. And 
if you
write one, send it to the autoconf macro archive to help others.

Best regards. Erwan.

Biswapesh Chattopadhyay wrote:

> This is a pretty good question and I'm afraid the answer is: we do a
> pretty shitty job of making the user's autotools handling pain easier.
> This is mainly due to two reasons:
>
> 1) Limitations of our project manager. It does not understand
> hierarchies, cannot parse configure.in/Makefile.am, etc., cannot handle
> multiple targets, etc. We are hoping to correct this in Anjuta2 and in a
> future GNOME2 port of Anjuta1.
>
> 2) There is no standard way to check for a particular library, header
> file, etc. The GNOME (and KDE I think) teams are trying to standardize
> on pkg-config but currently, there are various ways to check for package
> installation. The main ways are:
> 	a) pkg-config. Supported my all GNOME2 (and probably KDE3) packages +
> many current libraries. To check for a package which supports
> pkg-config, you need to add this to your configure.in:
> 	PKG_CHECK_MODULES(YOURPACKAGE, yourpackage >= versionnrequired)
> 	AC_SUBST(YOURPACKAGE_CFLAGS)
> 	AC_SUBST(YOURPACKAGE_LIBS)
>
> Then in your Makefile.am, you'll need to add:
> 	INCLUDES += $(YOURPACKAGE_CFLAGS)
> 	LDFLAGS += $(YOURPACKAGE_LIBS)
>
> (Substitute YOURPACKAGE with your package name in caps and yourpackage
> with your package name in lowercase)
>
> 	b) The various package-config scripts. These are available for GNOME
> 1.x, wxWIndows, PCRE, curl and various other packages. If a package does
> not support pkg-config, it is very likely that it will support a package
> specific config script. For example, if you want to use GLib in your
> program, you add this to your configure.in:
> 	AC_PATH_PROG(GLIB_CONFIG, glib-config,no)
> 	if test x$GLIB_CONFIG = xno; then
> 	  AC_MSG_ERROR(Couldn't find glib-config, please install the GLib
> package.)
> 	fi
> 	GLIB_CFLAGS=`glib-config --cflags`
> 	GLIB_LIBS=`glib-config --libs`
> 	AC_SUBST(GLIB_LIBS)
> 	AC_SUBST(GLIB_CFLAGS)
>
> Then, in your Makefile.am, you'll need to add:
> 	INCLUDES += $(GLIB_CFLAGS)
> 	LDFLAGS += $(GLIB_LIBS)
>
> 	c) If you want to check for a library header file, you can use the
> AC_CHECK_HEADERS macro like this:
> 		AC_CHECK_HEADER(myheader.h)
> 	This will work provided the headers are in the standard path.
>
> 	d) To check is a particular library function is available, you can use
> AC_CHECK_LIB. For example, add this to your configure.in to check if you
> have a sufficiently recent version of aspell:
> 	AC_CHECK_LIB(pspell, new_pspell_manager,,[AC_MSG_ERROR("some error")])
> 	(Example taken directly for balsa)
>
> 	e) To simply check for a function, you can use AC_CHECK_FUNCS in your
> configure.in like this:
> 	AC_CHECK_FUNCS(fnmatch)
>
> 	f) To check whether something compiles and works, you can use
> AC_TRY_COMPILE
>
> There are lots of other ways, most of which have already been made easy
> for you through autoconf macros. You can find out more by reading the
> macros in /usr/share/aclocal.
>
> The best way to do it is to just copy what others before you have done.
> I find it very handy to have the entire GNOME2 CVS on my disk. When I
> need to know/use something, I just grep for it and copy-paste it. It is
> the fastest and the best way.
>
> Finally, a warning: Since you'll have to make these changes by hand,
> make sure that you've set the overwriting of configure.in and
> Makefile.am off in Project->Configure.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Rgds,
> Biswa.
>
>  
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I would like to know, how to control the automake/autoconf stuff with
> > anjuta.
> > I do not really know much about this, so I hope that anjuta makes it
> > somehow
> > easier for me.
> > How do I tell anjuta to check for a special library, header file, program
> > and so
> > on. I go to the project explorer, rightclick->configure project:
> > Now what I have to type?
> > If its too basic, please give me an example and/or some info-sources.
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >                  Andre.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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