Re: Meson feedback as a user

[Iñigo Martínez <inigomartinez gmail com>]

You can also use mesonconf, which will show you all the available options, even those present in the meson_options.txt file  along with their possible values.

To activate those options, you can use either meson or mesonconf:

- meson -Denable_docs=true builddir

- mesonconf -Denable_docs=true builddir

Meson site has some more information regarding build options[0].

I agree with you that it would be nice to use the same name for common options, like gtk docs, just for consistency.

Best regards,

[0] http://mesonbuild.com/Build-options.html#build-options

El 2/7/2017 2:27 p. m., "Sébastien Wilmet" <swilmet gnome org> escribió:

Hi,

I don't want to learn Meson yet as a maintainer. Just as a user to build
some GNOME modules that now require Meson.

It seems that the Meson docs are now more focused for maintainers, not
users. What was great with the Autotools is that it was easy to use, as
a user: INSTALL file with all the user documentation,
./configure --help, etc.

So let's take a simple use-case: I want to build in Jhbuild the API docs
of Pango and other GNOME/GTK+ libraries.

I see that Jhbuild doesn't build the API docs of Pango by default. How
do I enable it? With the Autotools I had something like this in my
jhbuildrc:
module_autogenargs['pango'] = '--enable-gtk-doc'

$ cd ~/gnome/pango/
$ man meson
OK so I need to do:
$ meson --help
Nothing resembling --enable-gtk-doc. It seems that meson --help outputs
the same text for all projects.

Let's look at the Meson web site:
http://mesonbuild.com/Quick-guide.html doesn't help me.
http://mesonbuild.com/Tutorial.html dives directly for maintainers, not
users.

$ ls
Oh I see that there is a meson_options.txt.
$ cat meson_options.txt
option('enable_docs',
       description: 'Build API reference for Pango using GTK-Doc',
       type: 'boolean',
       value: false)
OK that's what I was looking for, how do I enable it?

$ meson --help
-D PROJECTOPTIONS     Set project options.

Probably that. Do I need to pass "-D enable_docs" or
"-D enable_docs=true" or "-D enable_docs='true'" or anything else? Do I
proceed by trials and errors until I find something that works?

Out of curiosity, let's look at other GNOME-related modules that use
gtk-doc. What is the name of the option that enables gtk-doc?
- pango:        enable_docs
- gtk+:         enable-documentation
- graphene:     enable-gtk-doc
- atk:          enable_docs

With the Autotools with the GTK_DOC_CHECK macro, it was --enable-gtk-doc
everywhere at least.

------------

So, that's it, I think Meson is still a bit young. I'll try another day.
Or I could do the same as everybody, asking on IRC, or reading the docs
for maintainers.

--
Sébastien
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