Confirm Installed Run-Time Version

[richard boaz <ivor boaz gmail com>]

i'm trying to create an installer of my program for all variants LINUX, but am having trouble with something i had hoped/though would be trivial.

how does one confirm from the shell which version of the run-time GTK+ libraries are installed?

• pkg-config won't work since destination machine has no .pc files as there's no dev install (nor should there need to be)
• platform-specific solutions do exist (e.g. "dpkg -l ..." for ubuntu, "yum install ..." on redhat, "apt-cache show ...", etc.), however

i'd like the following:

• platform-independent solution
• version confirmed at installation of program

i know i can check the version at program startup, but this is too late, i don't want to install *anything* until the target machine conforms to minimum version requirements.

is this possible, or must i discover platform-specific solution for each new platform as they arise?

any pointers greatly appreciated,

richard