librarian

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NAME librarian - Return flags for compiling against libraries

SYNOPSIS librarian [OPTION]... [--] [VARIABLE]... [LIBRARY]...

DESCRIPTION librarian is used to print flags required when compiling or linking, and want to use library that requires non-trival flags.

librarian shall output the flags, required by the
selected libraries, LIBRARY, that are listed under the
selected variables, VARIABLE.

LIBRARY can either be the name of the required library,
the name of the required library and a version of said
library, or the name of the required library and an
accepted version range of said library. If the same
library name is used more than once, the versions and
version ranges are unioned. Recognised formats are:

NAME            Any version of the library NAME will do.

NAME=VERSION    Only version VERSION of the library NAME
                is acceptable. (Multiple version can be
                used by specifying more than once.)

NAME<=MAX       Any versions up to and including MAX
                of the library NAME will do.

NAME<MAX        Any versions up to but excluding MAX
                of the library NAME will do.

NAME>=MIN       At least version MIN of the library
                NAME is required.

NAME>MIN        A greater version than version MIN of
                the library NAME is required.

NAME>=MIN<=MAX  Combines NAME>=MIN and NAME<=MAX.

NAME>=MIN<MAX   Combines NAME>=MIN and NAME<MAX.

NAME>MIN<=MAX   Combines NAME>MIN and NAME<=MAX.

NAME>MIN<MAX    Combines NAME>MIN and NAME<MAX.

The are not predefined values for VARIABLE, but the
standardised ones are:

CFLAGS          Flags required by the compiler to compile
               	the if the library LIBRARY is used. The
                library is a C library.

CPPFLAGS        Flags required by the C preprocessor to
               	compile the if the library LIBRARY is used.

LDFLAGS         Flags required by the linker to link the
               	program when the library LIBRARY is used.

CXXFLAGS        Flags required by the compiler to compile
               	the if the library LIBRARY is used. The
                library is a C++ library.

deps            Libraries the library LIBRARY is dependent
                on. Flags from these libraries should not
                appear in the other variables unless the
                library LIBRARY requires them directly.

All variables should be in upper case unless they are
reserved. In the latter case, the are lower cased.

If VARIABLE is omitted, the process will exit with the
value 0 if all listed libraries, LIBRARY, are available,
and otherwise exit with the value 2.

librarian files should be stored in PREFIX/share/librarian/.
Its filename should be the name of the library, followed
by an = (equals-sign) and the version number.

Empty lines and lines starting with a # (she) in a
librarian files are ignored. Other lines should begin
with a variable name and be followed by the required
flags relevant to that variable. For the variable deps,
libraries that the library requires should be listed
in the same format the LIBRARY argument uses.

OPTIONS -d Add output for dependencies too. Should be used for LDFLAGS when linking statically.

-l	Print the location of the files specified by
	LIBRARY.

-o	Prefer older libraries, when multiple versions
	are available.

ENVIRONMENT LIBRARIAN_PATH Colon-separated list of directories to search for librarian files.

EXIT STATUS 0 Program was successful.

1	An error occurred.

2	A library was not found.

3	Usage error.

FEATURES * Sane option set. * Does not use glib. * Does not implement features your package manager implement. * Language agnostic. * Does not resolve variables declared in the file. * Does not parse lines beyond identifying what it is.

RATIONALE pkg-config(1) sucks.

FUTURE DIRECTION Will be implemented if needed in the real world:

*	When is used -d, librarian will try all
	versions of the libraries until it founds
	a combination all selected libraries and
	their dependencies are compatible with,
	rather than simply failing.

*	Library conflicts.

SEE ALSO pkg-config(1)