gnome-config - GNOME libraries and component information retrieval.

gnome-config [--version] [--help] [--cflags] [--libs] [--libs-only-L] [--libs-only-l] [--prefix] [--exec-prefix] [--bindir] [--sbindir] [--libexecdir] [--datadir] [--sysconfdir] [--sharedstatedir] [--localstatedir] [--libdir] [--infodir] [--mandir] [--includedir] [--modversion] [LIBRARIES...]

The gnome-config program is used to retrieve information from installed libraries in the system. It is typically used to compile and link against one or more GNOME libraries. Here is a typical usage scenario in a Makefile:

program: program.c
	cc program.c `gnome-config --cflags --libs gnomeui`

Usually, a combination of flags is used like --cflags and --libs in conjunction with the list of libraries that your program uses. These libraries are specified as part of the command line.

gnome-config includes hard-coded information for a number of libraries: the ones used to build gnome-libs, and the ones provided by gnome-libs (which gnome-config is part of). Other libraries are integrated by providing gnome-config modules.

The following Generic options are supported:

--version

Requests that the gnome-libs version information be displayed.

--modversion

Requests that the version information of the libraries specified on the command line be displayed. This information is either the gnome-libs version for libraries that are part of gnome-libs, or the version specified in MODULE_VERSION variable in the module configuration file.

--help

Displays a help message and terminates.

The following options are used to compile and link programs with GNOME libraries and components:

--cflags

This prints pre-processor and compiler flags required to compile the module with the libraries specified on the command line.

--libs

This prints the library linking information. These flags can be passed to the compiler driver to link an object file with the libraries specified on the command line.

--libs-only-L

This only prints the -L/-R part of --libs for the libraries specified on the command line.

--libs-only-l

This only prints the -l part of --libs for the libraries specified on the command line.

The following options are used to find out the directories that were used to install the various files that are part of the GNOME distribution, they correspond to the variable names used by the Makefiles (Makefiles in GNOME are compliant with the GNU standard for makefiles, and they typically use GNU autoconf and GNU automake to get these right and uniform):

--prefix

Outputs the prefix that was used to configure the GNOME libraries.

--exec-prefix

Outputs the exec-prefix used to install the GNOME libraries.

--bindir

Outputs the bindir used to install the GNOME libraries.

--sbindir

Outputs the sbindir used to install the GNOME libraries.

--libexecdir

Outputs the libexecdir used to install the GNOME libraries.

--datadir

Outputs the datadir used to install the GNOME libraries.

--sysconfdir

Outputs the sysconfdir used to install the GNOME libraries.

--sharedstatedir

Outputs the sharedstatedir used to install the GNOME libraries.

--localstatedir

Outputs the localstatedir used to install the GNOME libraries.

--libdir

Outputs the libdir used to install the GNOME libraries.

--infodir

Outputs the infodir used to install the GNOME libraries.

--mandir

Outputs the mandir used to install the GNOME libraries.

--includedir

Outputs the includedir used to install the GNOME libraries.

The basic set of libraries you can link with are:

    glib        (calls glib-config)
    idl         (to be used with orbit-idl)
    gnome
    gnomeui
    gnorba
    gtk         (calls gtk-config)
    gtkxmhtml   (only --libs)
    zvt         (only --libs)

gnome-config can incorporate more GNOME libraries, to do so the library author needs to install an xxxxConf.sh file in the directory returned by "gnome-config --libdir" or in any directory listed in the GNOME_LIBCONFIG_PATH environment variable or in the directory pointed by GNOME_PATH/lib

The prefix "xxxx" should be substituted with the module name, for example, the applets library installs the appletConf.sh file.

The configuration file is a shell script evaluated by gnome-config and it should define four shell variable settings:

xxx_LIBDIR

This specifies any directory paths required to find the libraries defined by this module.

XXX_LIBS

A list of compiler options to link the code with this module.

XXX_INCLUDEDIR

This specifies the flags that should be passed to the compiler for the program to be able to locate the header files provided by the module.

MODULE_VERSION

This should be the module version number. It should be in the format "module-version", for example "bonobo-0.1" is a valid MODULE_VERSION setting.

This is an example file for an imaginary library called "foo":

#
# Configuration file for using library foo.
# 
FOO_LIBDIR="-L/opt/foo/lib"
FOO_LIBS="-lfoo"
FOO_INCLUDEDIR="-I/opt/foo/include"
MODULE_VERSION=foo-2.3

Typically these files are generated at configuration or compilation time, authors usually use a template file, this is an example template file for fooConf.sh, it is called fooConf.sh.in:

#
# Configuration file for using library foo.
# 
FOO_LIBDIR="@FOO_LIBDIR@"
FOO_LIBS="@FOO_LIBS@"
FOO_INCLUDEDIR="@FOO_INCLUDEDIR@"
MODULE_VERSION=foo-@VERSION@

The above template file is typically processed by the Makefile to produce the actual configuration file. This is a sample piece of code that shows how to get this right:

## We create fooConf.sh here and not from configure because we want
## to get the paths expanded correctly.  Macros like srcdir are given
## the value NONE in configure if the user doesn't specify them (this
## is an autoconf feature, not a bug).

fooConf.sh: fooConf.sh.in Makefile ## Use sed and then mv to avoid problems if the user interrupts. sed -e 's?@FOO_LIBDIR@?$(FOO_LIBDIR)?g' \ -e 's?@FOO_INCLUDEDIR@?$(FOO_INCLUDEDIR)?g' \ -e 's?@FOO_LIBS@?$(FOO_LIBS)?g' \ -e 's?@VERSION@@?$(VERSION)?g' \ < $(srcdir)/fooConf.sh.in > fooConf.tmp \ && mv fooConf.tmp fooConf.sh

This file is then copied into a system accessible location.

The gnome-config program uses the directories listed in the GNOME_LIBCONFIG_PATH to locate library definition files (Conf.sh) installed on the system. The variable GNOME_PATH is used as a list of directories where GNOME applications and libraries have been installed. gnome-config looks in the lib subdirectory of each directory listed here for library definition files (Conf.sh) installed.

gnome-config was written by Miguel de Icaza, Raja Harinath and various hackers in the GNOME team. It was inspired by Owen Taylor's gtk-config program.

gnome(1), gtk-config(1),

If you find bugs in the gnome-config program, please report these using the gnome-bug script included with the GNOME libraries distribution.