pkg-config(1) General Commands Manual pkg-config(1)
NAME
pkg-config - Return metainformation about installed libraries
SYNOPSIS
pkg-config [--modversion] [--version] [--help] [--atleast-pkgconfig-
version=VERSION] [--print-errors] [--short-errors] [--silence-errors]
[--errors-to-stdout] [--debug] [--cflags] [--libs] [--libs-only-L]
[--libs-only-l] [--cflags-only-I] [--libs-only-other] [--cflags-only-
other] [--variable=VARIABLENAME] [--define-variable=VARIABLENAME=VARI-
ABLEVALUE] [--print-variables] [--uninstalled] [--exists] [--atleast-
version=VERSION] [--exact-version=VERSION] [--max-version=VERSION]
[--validate] [--list-all] [--print-provides] [--print-requires]
[--print-requires-private] [LIBRARIES...]
DESCRIPTION
The pkg-config program is used to retrieve information about installed
libraries in the system. It is typically used to compile and link
against one or more libraries. Here is a typical usage scenario in a
Makefile:
program: program.c
cc program.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs gnomeui`
pkg-config retrieves information about packages from special metadata
files. These files are named after the package, and has a .pc exten-
sion. On most systems, pkg-config looks in /usr/lib/pkgconfig,
/usr/share/pkgconfig, /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig and /usr/lo-
cal/share/pkgconfig for these files. It will additionally look in the
colon-separated (on Windows, semicolon-separated) list of directories
specified by the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable.
The package name specified on the pkg-config command line is defined to
be the name of the metadata file, minus the .pc extension. If a library
can install multiple versions simultaneously, it must give each version
its own name (for example, GTK 1.2 might have the package name "gtk+"
while GTK 2.0 has "gtk+-2.0").
In addition to specifying a package name on the command line, the full
path to a given .pc file may be given instead. This allows a user to
directly query a particular .pc file.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
--modversion
Requests that the version information of the libraries specified
on the command line be displayed. If pkg-config can find all
the libraries on the command line, each library's version string
is printed to stdout, one version per line. In this case pkg-
config exits successfully. If one or more libraries is unknown,
pkg-config exits with a nonzero code, and the contents of stdout
are undefined.
--version
Displays the version of pkg-config and terminates.
--atleast-pkgconfig-version=VERSION
Requires at least the given version of pkg-config.
--help Displays a help message and terminates.
--print-errors
If one or more of the modules on the command line, or their de-
pendencies, are not found, or if an error occurs in parsing a
.pc file, then this option will cause errors explaining the
problem to be printed. With "predicate" options such as "--ex-
ists" pkg-config runs silently by default, because it's usually
used in scripts that want to control what's output. This option
can be used alone (to just print errors encountered locating
modules on the command line) or with other options. The PKG_CON-
FIG_DEBUG_SPEW environment variable overrides this option.
--short-errors
Print short error messages.
--silence-errors
If one or more of the modules on the command line, or their de-
pendencies, are not found, or if an error occurs in parsing a a
.pc file, then this option will keep errors explaining the prob-
lem from being printed. With "predicate" options such as "--ex-
ists" pkg-config runs silently by default, because it's usually
used in scripts that want to control what's output. So this op-
tion is only useful with options such as "--cflags" or "--mod-
version" that print errors by default. The PKG_CONFIG_DEBUG_SPEW
environment variable overrides this option.
--errors-to-stdout
If printing errors, print them to stdout rather than the default
stderr
--debug
Print debugging information. This is slightly different than the
PKG_CONFIG_DEBUG_SPEW environment variable, which also enable
"--print-errors".
The following options are used to compile and link programs:
--cflags
This prints pre-processor and compile flags required to compile
the packages on the command line, including flags for all their
dependencies. Flags are "compressed" so that each identical flag
appears only once. pkg-config exits with a nonzero code if it
can't find metadata for one or more of the packages on the com-
mand line.
--cflags-only-I
This prints the -I part of "--cflags". That is, it defines the
header search path but doesn't specify anything else.
--cflags-only-other
This prints parts of "--cflags" not covered by "--cflags-only-
I".
--libs This option is identical to "--cflags", only it prints the link
flags. As with "--cflags", duplicate flags are merged (maintain-
ing proper ordering), and flags for dependencies are included in
the output.
--libs-only-L
This prints the -L/-R part of "--libs". That is, it defines the
library search path but doesn't specify which libraries to link
with.
--libs-only-l
This prints the -l part of "--libs" for the libraries specified
on the command line. Note that the union of "--libs-only-l" and
"--libs-only-L" may be smaller than "--libs", due to flags such
as -rdynamic.
--libs-only-other
This prints the parts of "--libs" not covered by "--libs-only-L"
and "--libs-only-l", such as "--pthread".
--variable=VARIABLENAME
This returns the value of a variable defined in a package's .pc
file. Most packages define the variable "prefix", for example,
so you can say:
$ pkg-config --variable=prefix glib-2.0
/usr/
--define-variable=VARIABLENAME=VARIABLEVALUE
This sets a global value for a variable, overriding the value in
any .pc files. Most packages define the variable "prefix", for
example, so you can say:
$ pkg-config --print-errors --define-variable=prefix=/foo \
--variable=prefix glib-2.0
/foo
--print-variables
Returns a list of all variables defined in the package.
--uninstalled
Normally if you request the package "foo" and the package "foo-
uninstalled" exists, pkg-config will prefer the "-uninstalled"
variant. This allows compilation/linking against uninstalled
packages. If you specify the "--uninstalled" option, pkg-config
will return successfully if any "-uninstalled" packages are be-
ing used, and return failure (false) otherwise. (The PKG_CON-
FIG_DISABLE_UNINSTALLED environment variable keeps pkg-config
from implicitly choosing "-uninstalled" packages, so if that
variable is set, they will only have been used if you pass a
name like "foo-uninstalled" on the command line explicitly.)
--exists
--atleast-version=VERSION
--exact-version=VERSION
--max-version=VERSION
These options test whether the package or list of packages on
the command line are known to pkg-config, and optionally whether
the version number of a package meets certain constraints. If
all packages exist and meet the specified version constraints,
pkg-config exits successfully. Otherwise it exits unsuccess-
fully. Only the first VERSION comparing option will be honored.
Subsequent options of this type will be ignored.
Rather than using the version-test options, you can simply give
a version constraint after each package name, for example:
$ pkg-config --exists 'glib-2.0 >= 1.3.4 libxml = 1.8.3'
Remember to use --print-errors if you want error messages. When
no output options are supplied to pkg-config, --exists is im-
plied.
--validate
Checks the syntax of a package's .pc file for validity. This is
the same as --exists except that dependencies are not verified.
This can be useful for package developers to test their .pc file
prior to release:
$ pkg-config --validate ./my-package.pc
--msvc-syntax
This option is available only on Windows. It causes pkg-config
to output -l and -L flags in the form recognized by the Micro-
soft Visual C++ command-line compiler, cl. Specifically, instead
of -Lx:/some/path it prints /libpath:x/some/path, and instead of
-lfoo it prints foo.lib. Note that the --libs output consists of
flags for the linker, and should be placed on the cl command
line after a /link switch.
--define-prefix
--dont-define-prefix
These options control whether pkg-config overrides the value of
the variable prefix in each .pc file. With --define-prefix, pkg-
config uses the installed location of the .pc file to determine
the prefix. --dont-define-prefix prevents this behavior. The de-
fault is usually --define-prefix.
When this feature is enabled and a .pc file is found in a direc-
tory named pkgconfig, the prefix for that package is assumed to
be the grandparent of the directory where the file was found,
and the prefix variable is overridden for that file accordingly.
If the value of a variable in a .pc file begins with the origi-
nal, non-overridden, value of the prefix variable, then the
overridden value of prefix is used instead. This allows the fea-
ture to work even when the variables have been expanded in the
.pc file.
--prefix-variable=PREFIX
Set the name of the variable that pkg-config overrides instead
of prefix when using the --define-prefix feature.
--static
Output libraries suitable for static linking. That means in-
cluding any private libraries in the output. This relies on
proper tagging in the .pc files, else a too large number of li-
braries will ordinarily be output.
--list-all
List all modules found in the pkg-config path.
--print-provides
List all modules the given packages provides.
--print-requires
List all modules the given packages requires.
--print-requires-private
List all modules the given packages requires for static linking
(see --static).
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
PKG_CONFIG_PATH
A colon-separated (on Windows, semicolon-separated) list of di-
rectories to search for .pc files. The default directory will
always be searched after searching the path; the default is
libdir/pkgconfig:datadir/pkgconfig where libdir is the libdir
for pkg-config and datadir is the datadir for pkg-config when it
was installed.
PKG_CONFIG_DEBUG_SPEW
If set, causes pkg-config to print all kinds of debugging infor-
mation and report all errors.
PKG_CONFIG_TOP_BUILD_DIR
A value to set for the magic variable pc_top_builddir which may
appear in .pc files. If the environment variable is not set, the
default value '$(top_builddir)' will be used. This variable
should refer to the top builddir of the Makefile where the com-
pile/link flags reported by pkg-config will be used. This only
matters when compiling/linking against a package that hasn't yet
been installed.
PKG_CONFIG_DISABLE_UNINSTALLED
Normally if you request the package "foo" and the package "foo-
uninstalled" exists, pkg-config will prefer the "-uninstalled"
variant. This allows compilation/linking against uninstalled
packages. If this environment variable is set, it disables said
behavior.
PKG_CONFIG_SYSTEM_INCLUDE_PATH
A path variable containing system directories searched by the
compiler. This is normally /usr/include.
CPATH
C_INCLUDE_PATH
CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH
Additional paths to append to PKG_CONFIG_SYSTEM_INCLUDE_PATH.
These correspond to environment variables used by many compilers
to affect the header search path. These are ignored on Windows
builds when --msvc-syntax is in use.
INCLUDE
Additional paths to append to PKG_CONFIG_SYSTEM_INCLUDE_PATH on
Windows builds when --msvc-syntax is in use. This corresponds to
the environment variable used by MSVC to add directories to the
include file search path.
PKG_CONFIG_ALLOW_SYSTEM_CFLAGS
Don't strip system paths out of Cflags. See PKG_CONFIG_SYS-
TEM_INCLUDE_PATH for the definition of system paths.
PKG_CONFIG_SYSTEM_LIBRARY_PATH
A path variable containing system directories searched by the
linker. This is normally /usr/lib:/lib but is dependent on the
pkg-config build and can contain other directories such as
/usr/lib64.
PKG_CONFIG_ALLOW_SYSTEM_LIBS
Don't strip system paths out of Libs. See PKG_CONFIG_SYSTEM_LI-
BRARY_PATH for the definition of system paths.
PKG_CONFIG_SYSROOT_DIR
Modify -I and -L to use the directories located in target sys-
root. this option is useful when cross-compiling packages that
use pkg-config to determine CFLAGS and LDFLAGS. -I and -L are
modified to point to the new system root. this means that a
-I/usr/include/libfoo will become -I/var/target/usr/include/lib-
foo with a PKG_CONFIG_SYSROOT_DIR equal to /var/target (same
rule apply to -L)
PKG_CONFIG_LIBDIR
Replaces the default pkg-config search directory, usually
/usr/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig.
PKG_CONFIG_$PACKAGE_$VARIABLE
Overrides the variable VARIABLE in the package PACKAGE. The en-
vironment variable should have the package name and package
variable upper cased with non-alphanumeric characters converted
to underscores. For example, setting PKG_CONFIG_GLADEUI_2_0_CAT-
ALOGDIR will override the variable "catalogdir" in the
"gladeui-2.0" package.
PKG-CONFIG DERIVED VARIABLES
pkg-config sets a few metadata variables that can be used in .pc files
or queried at runtime.
pc_path
The default search path used by pkg-config when searching for
.pc files. This can be used in a query for the pkg-config module
itself itself:
$ pkg-config --variable pc_path pkg-config
pcfiledir
The installed location of the .pc file. This can be used to
query the location of the .pc file for a particular module, but
it can also be used to make .pc files relocatable. For instance:
prefix=${pcfiledir}/../..
exec_prefix=${prefix}
libdir=${exec_prefix}/lib
includedir=${prefix}/include
pc_sysrootdir
The sysroot directory set by the user. When the sysroot direc-
tory has not been set, this value is /. See the PKG_CONFIG_SYS-
ROOT_DIR environment variable for more details.
pc_top_builddir
Location of the user's top build directory when calling pkg-con-
fig. This is useful to dynamically set paths in uninstalled .pc
files. See the PKG_CONFIG_TOP_BUILD_DIR environment variable for
more details.
WINDOWS SPECIALITIES
The pkg-config default search path is ignored on Windows. Instead, the
search path is constructed by using the installed directory of pkg-con-
fig and then appending lib\pkgconfig and share\pkgconfig. This can be
augmented or replaced using the standard environment variables de-
scribed above.
AUTOCONF MACROS
PKG_CHECK_MODULES(VARIABLE-PREFIX, MODULES [,ACTION-IF-FOUND [,ACTION-
IF-NOT-FOUND]])
The macro PKG_CHECK_MODULES can be used in configure.ac to check
whether modules exist. A typical usage would be:
PKG_CHECK_MODULES([MYSTUFF], [gtk+-2.0 >= 1.3.5 libxml = 1.8.4])
This would result in MYSTUFF_LIBS and MYSTUFF_CFLAGS substitu-
tion variables, set to the libs and cflags for the given module
list. If a module is missing or has the wrong version, by de-
fault configure will abort with a message. To replace the de-
fault action, specify an ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND. PKG_CHECK_MODULES
will not print any error messages if you specify your own AC-
TION-IF-NOT-FOUND. However, it will set the variable
MYSTUFF_PKG_ERRORS, which you can use to display what went
wrong.
Note that if there is a possibility the first call to
PKG_CHECK_MODULES might not happen, you should be sure to in-
clude an explicit call to PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG in your config-
ure.ac.
Also note that repeated usage of VARIABLE-PREFIX is not recom-
mended. After the first successful usage, subsequent calls with
the same VARIABLE-PREFIX will simply use the _LIBS and _CFLAGS
variables set from the previous usage without calling pkg-config
again.
PKG_PREREQ(MIN-VERSION)
Checks that the version of the pkg-config autoconf macros in use
is at least MIN-VERSION. This can be used to ensure a particular
pkg-config macro will be available.
PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG([MIN-VERSION])
Defines the PKG_CONFIG variable to the best pkg-config avail-
able, useful if you need pkg-config but don't want to use
PKG_CHECK_MODULES.
If the first call to PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG is conditional, then it
will not work correctly in all cases. Since many of the other
macros such as PKG_CHECK_MODULES require PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG to
know which pkg-config program to run, PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG may be
run for the first time from a conditional from one of these
macros. Therefore, if any of the pkg-config macros will be used
under a conditional, it's best to run PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG before
any of the other macros are used.
PKG_CHECK_MODULES_STATIC(VARIABLE-PREFIX, MODULES [,ACTION-IF-FOUND
[,ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND]])
Enables static linking through --static prior to calling
PKG_CHECK_MODULES.
PKG_CHECK_EXISTS(MODULES, [ACTION-IF-FOUND], [ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND])
Check to see whether a particular set of modules exists. Simi-
lar to PKG_CHECK_MODULES(), but does not set variables or print
errors.
Similar to PKG_CHECK_MODULES, make sure that the first instance
of this or PKG_CHECK_MODULES is called, or make sure to call
PKG_PROG_PKGCONFIG manually.
PKG_INSTALLDIR(DIRECTORY)
Substitutes the variable pkgconfigdir as the location where a
module should install pkg-config .pc files. By default the di-
rectory is $libdir/pkgconfig, but the default can be changed by
passing DIRECTORY. The user can override through the --with-
pkgconfigdir parameter.
PKG_NOARCH_INSTALLDIR(DIRECTORY)
Substitutes the variable noarch_pkgconfigdir as the location
where a module should install arch-independent pkg-config .pc
files. By default the directory is $datadir/pkgconfig, but the
default can be changed by passing DIRECTORY. The user can over-
ride through the --with-noarch-pkgconfigdir parameter.
PKG_CHECK_VAR(VARIABLE, MODULE, CONFIG-VARIABLE, [ACTION-IF-FOUND],
[ACTION-IF-NOT-FOUND])
Retrieves the value of the pkg-config variable CONFIG-VARIABLE
from MODULE and stores it in VARIABLE. Note that repeated usage
of VARIABLE is not recommended as the check will be skipped if
the variable is already set.
METADATA FILE SYNTAX
To add a library to the set of packages pkg-config knows about, simply
install a .pc file. You should install this file to libdir/pkgconfig.
Here is an example file:
# This is a comment
prefix=/home/hp/unst # this defines a variable
exec_prefix=${prefix} # defining another variable in terms of the first
libdir=${exec_prefix}/lib
includedir=${prefix}/include
Name: GObject # human-readable name
Description: Object/type system for GLib # human-readable description
Version: 1.3.1
URL: http://www.gtk.org
Requires: glib-2.0 = 1.3.1
Conflicts: foobar <= 4.5
Libs: -L${libdir} -lgobject-1.3
Libs.private: -lm
Cflags: -I${includedir}/glib-2.0 -I${libdir}/glib/include
You would normally generate the file using configure, so that the pre-
fix, etc. are set to the proper values. The GNU Autoconf manual recom-
mends generating files like .pc files at build time rather than config-
ure time, so when you build the .pc file is a matter of taste and pref-
erence.
Files have two kinds of line: keyword lines start with a keyword plus a
colon, and variable definitions start with an alphanumeric string plus
an equals sign. Keywords are defined in advance and have special mean-
ing to pkg-config; variables do not, you can have any variables that
you wish (however, users may expect to retrieve the usual directory
name variables).
Note that variable references are written "${foo}"; you can escape lit-
eral "${" as "$${".
Name: This field should be a human-readable name for the package. Note
that it is not the name passed as an argument to pkg-config.
Description:
This should be a brief description of the package
URL: An URL where people can get more information about and download
the package
Version:
This should be the most-specific-possible package version
string.
Requires:
This is a comma-separated list of packages that are required by
your package. Flags from dependent packages will be merged in to
the flags reported for your package. Optionally, you can specify
the version of the required package (using the operators =, <,
>, >=, <=); specifying a version allows pkg-config to perform
extra sanity checks. You may only mention the same package one
time on the Requires: line. If the version of a package is un-
specified, any version will be used with no checking.
Requires.private:
A list of packages required by this package. The difference from
Requires is that the packages listed under Requires.private are
not taken into account when a flag list is computed for dynami-
cally linked executable (i.e., when --static was not specified).
In the situation where each .pc file corresponds to a library,
Requires.private shall be used exclusively to specify the depen-
dencies between the libraries.
Conflicts:
This optional line allows pkg-config to perform additional san-
ity checks, primarily to detect broken user installations. The
syntax is the same as Requires: except that you can list the
same package more than once here, for example "foobar = 1.2.3,
foobar = 1.2.5, foobar >= 1.3", if you have reason to do so. If
a version isn't specified, then your package conflicts with all
versions of the mentioned package. If a user tries to use your
package and a conflicting package at the same time, then pkg-
config will complain.
Libs: This line should give the link flags specific to your package.
Don't add any flags for required packages; pkg-config will add
those automatically.
Libs.private:
This line should list any private libraries in use. Private li-
braries are libraries which are not exposed through your li-
brary, but are needed in the case of static linking. This dif-
fers from Requires.private in that it references libraries that
do not have package files installed.
Cflags:
This line should list the compile flags specific to your pack-
age. Don't add any flags for required packages; pkg-config will
add those automatically.
AUTHOR
pkg-config was written by James Henstridge, rewritten by Martijn van
Beers, and rewritten again by Havoc Pennington. Tim Janik, Owen Taylor,
and Raja Harinath submitted suggestions and some code. 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.
BUGS
pkg-config does not handle mixing of parameters with and without =
well. Stick with one.
Bugs can be reported at http://bugs.freedesktop.org/ under the pkg-con-
fig component.
pkg-config(1)