libircclient not found

[andy5995]

On Ubuntu 22.04 and Manjaro, meson can't find libircclient using dependency() (The libircclient upstream project doesn't include a '.pc' file). Here's my (amateur) code to workaround this:

inc_ircclient = []
dep_irclient = []
dep_ircclient = dependency('libircclient', required: false)
if not dep_ircclient.found()
  dep_ircclient = cc.find_library('libircclient', has_headers: 'libircclient.h', required: false)
  if not dep_ircclient.found()
    inc_ircclient = '/usr/include/libircclient'
    dep_ircclient = cc.find_library(
      'libircclient',
      has_headers: 'libircclient.h',
      header_include_directories: include_directories(inc_ircclient)
    )
  endif
endif

On Manjaro, the headers are in '/usr/include/libircclient' and Ubuntu they are in '/usr/include'.

@astavale maybe this affects you, too. I saw you're using libirc... in #4702

When I used only find_package() for libircclient on Manjaro the header wasn't found until I added the extra code (above)

[astavale]

I use Fedora and the header is in /usr/include/. I didn't get too far with the binding, but my meson.build file was:

project( 'vala binding to libircclient tests', 'vala', 'c' )

vapi_dir = join_paths( meson.current_source_dir (), 'vapi' )

add_project_arguments(['--vapidir', vapi_dir], language: 'vala')

dependencies = [
	dependency( 'glib-2.0' ),
	dependency( 'gobject-2.0' ),
	meson.get_compiler( 'c' ).find_library( 'libircclient' ),
	meson.get_compiler( 'vala' ).find_library( 'libircclient', dirs: vapi_dir ),
]

get_version = executable( 'get_version', files( 'tests/get_version.gs' ), dependencies: dependencies )

test( 'libircclient version should be found', get_version )

I'm not sure what heuristics Meson build uses for finding system wide headers, but you could try dropping has_headers: 'libircclient.h'. This works fine for me:

meson.get_compiler( 'c' ).find_library( 'libircclient' )

[eli-schwartz]

The upstream source code installs headers to /usr/include and not /usr/include/libircclient -- that is the only thing you should care about.

Some distros patch things in broken ways that simply don't work, which is just bad QA. I wouldn't worry about them. You could add a meson wrap for libircclient, it seems simple enough, and use that as a fallback for users building on those distros.

[andy5995]

You could add a meson wrap for libircclient, it seems simple enough, and use that as a fallback for users building on those distros.

@eli-schwartz Pardon my ignorance, but do you mean as a PR for the meson project (and if so, could you provide a link to a commit for an example), or do you mean to suggest I include the wrap with the project I'm working on?

I'm not sure what heuristics Meson build uses for finding system wide headers, but you could try dropping has_headers: 'libircclient.h'. This works fine for me:

meson.get_compiler( 'c' ).find_library( 'libircclient' )

@astavale That works for meson configure, but the build fails on some distros because the includes can't be found (like when there in /usr/include/libircclient).

[eli-schwartz]

Pardon my ignorance, but do you mean as a PR for the meson project (and if so, could you provide a link to a commit for an example), or do you mean to suggest I include the wrap with the project I'm working on?

You can include the wrap with the project you're working on, and add the meson.build file for the libircclient subproject to subprojects/packagefiles/libircclient/meson.build.

[tristan957]

@eli-schwartz closeable

[eli-schwartz]

This is a project issue, not a meson one.