Re: [Mingw-users] glib and pkg-config build on win2k

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Tor Lillqvist <tml iki fi> writes:

> martyn 2 russell bt com writes:
>  > Tell me, why does the configure script for glib require pkg-config?
> 
> Umm, good catch. GLib's configure script checks for pkg-config being
> present, but then doesn't ask pkg-config for anything. I was
> flabbergasted.
> 
> But then I realized the reasoning is that GLib wants to install it's
> own .pc file, and requires a pkg-config installation so that there is
> somewhere to install it.
> 
>  > If glib was able to be build without pkg-config, you would then avoid the
>  > pkg-config depending on glib and visa versa malarkey.
> 
> Indeed. IMHO GLib should not check for pkg-config being present, there
> isn't any harm in installing its .pc file in $libdir/pkgconfig even if
> there is no pkg-config installed on the machine. (Of course, the .pc
> file is useless then, until pkg-config gets installed, but so what.)

The reasoning is that pkg-config is the *only* approved way of 
using GLib. There is no way to know what compilation flags to
use for GLib without using pkg-config.

Plus, we need to be able to do version checks on pkg-config.

Is the concern wanting to use the system glib to compile pkg-config
on Windows? Maybe we need a --disable-pkg-config-checks configure
option.

Regards,
                                        Owen