Build/Configure time detection of gi library (and override) versions

[John Stowers <john stowers lists gmail com>]

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how we might make
build/configure time detection of installed pygobject gi libraries
easier.

For example, I have a modified [1] python.m4 that lets me check
arbitrary attributes [2] of imported python modules.

Does gi have some central concept of the version of a typelib that could
be used instead? That way we might ship a m4 macro that looks at this to
allow pkg-config style checks of libraries that export gi information.

It gets a little more murky with overrides changing per pygobject
release, even if the underlying gi module they override does not.

Any thoughts?

John

[1] http://git.gnome.org/browse/conduit/tree/m4/python.m4#n208
[2] http://git.gnome.org/browse/conduit/tree/configure.ac#n53