[sane-devel] sane-config and pkgconfig

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Hi Ralph,

Ralph Little writes:

>  Hi,
>
>     On Wednesday, August 28, 2019, 4:43:48 a.m. PDT, Olaf Meeuwissen <paddy-hack at member.fsf.org> wrote:
>> I'd suggest modifying m4/sane.m4 to use pkg-config or simply inline the
>> PKG_CONFIG macro call directly in configure.ac, replacing AM_PATH_SANE.
>
>> Q: How good is your autofoo? Are you familiar with autoconf and
>>  friends? If not, I'll be around to help out, even make the changes
>>  needed, if needed, after looking at the fine print ;-)
>
> Not great TBH but I'm learning.

Good.

> Looking into autoconf, it feels like I need a book of spells rather
> than documentation to properly configure it. :P

Don't forget the dirty dozen of magic wands, I heard Amazon has a great
deal on those, and a GNU/Hurd of sacrificial goats.  The latter are a
great deal harder to get a hold off ;-P

And that's before you get to automake :-/

Actually, the documentation isn't that bad but it takes a bit of time to
grasp how all the various files and utilities combine.

>>> Should we be able to rely on the existence of pkgconfig in the xsane
>>> build to locate and link with libsane?
>
>> I'd say yes as sane-backends provides the necessary *.pc file.
>> The sane-frontends also need to be cluebatted on current practice. It
>> hasn't seen a release since 2005-09-18 :scream:
>
> Perhaps after we have a functioning xsane build we could have a
> splurge on killing sane-config for good.I find its existence
> confusing, especially in distros that have a sane-config manpage but
> no actual sane-config.

I submitted sane-project/backends#129 for that.  See

  https://gitlab.com/sane-project/backends/issues/129

> I'm happy to have a look at the sane frontend build with my new found
> autoconf foo.

By all means.

Hope this helps,
--
Olaf Meeuwissen, LPIC-2            FSF Associate Member since 2004-01-27
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