[CMake] pkg-config at Windows Command Prompt

[Brandon Van Every]

On 9/28/07, Brandon Van Every <bvanevery at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/27/07, Alan W. Irwin <irwin at beluga.phys.uvic.ca> wrote:
> > On 2007-09-27 16:12-0400 Brandon Van Every wrote:
> >
> > http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/downloads.html is a site that contains
> > windows binaries for the libgtk+ dependencies (which include glib and
> > pkg-config).
> > >
> > > 1) does pkg-config.exe work from the Windows Command Prompt,
> > > independent of any MSYS shell environment that was used to build it?
> > > i.e. is it really "native" ?
> > >
> >
> > That's an important question.  Please try the pkg-config.exe that I found
> > above (I have no access to windows so I cannot try it myself) and let us
> > know the answer.
>
> Will do, to let you know the answer.

First I downloaded archives for pkg-config, glib, gettext, and iconv
from that website.  These were necessary for pkg-config to work.  I
unzipped 'em all into Unixy tree that has /bin /man directories etc.
That will tell you off-the-bat that nobody's using pkg-config in a
self-contained manner.  It is deployed as part of a bunch of Unixy
open source libraries and toolchains.

In the course of this, I noticed that the pkg-config binary is version
0.20, whereas the source on the pkg-config website is version 0.22.
That means the Windows testing, maintenance, and release cycle is not
up to mission-critical standards.

At the Windows Command Prompt I type "pkg-config" and get "Must
specify package names on the command line".  pkg-config --help gives
me a bunch of blah blah blah.  I realize at this point I have to know
what I'm doing.  I look for the docs.  They aren't on the pkg-config
website, they're in the source archive and they are manpages only.
More evidence that Windows native development isn't a consideration.
I start a Cygwin installation because I don't have a man page reader
installed anywhere.  Plus I'll be able to compare the Cygwin
pkg-config behavior to the Windows native binary behavior.

Now I'm trying to learn the absolute minimum about pkg-config to find
a test case to prove whether it works or not.  I remember SDL using
pkg-config so I will try that.  This is boring and I have other things
to do, so I'm sending this out meanwhile.  I will say, especially to
Alan: this has already flunked any "prime time" Windows native
development requirements.   I think it's perfectly reasonable to be
critical of pkg-config on that basis.  But if someone has the
political and technical interest to make it work well for Windows
native development, they could try.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every