A specification for pkg-config

[Tollef Fog Heen]

]] Dan Nicholson 

> I think that's really great that you did that work. I've always wanted
> a formal spec for pkg-config. The best we have is buried in
> pkg-config(1). I'd love to carry a spec in the pkg-config repo and
> publish it on the website. This seems like a great start. There are
> certain bugs that I don't think can be fixed without small extensions
> of the syntax, and without a spec it's difficult to roll those out.
> Now to the specifics.

I don't particularly care about having a spec, but if people want to
write one, I'm not particularly opposed to having it.  Though, it does
mean that we suddenly need to have a process for extending it too,
including formal version numbers and such.

Do we actually want that?

> 1. Most of the introduction is complaints about how the reference
> implementation has been designed. I don't think that belongs in a
> specification.

Yeah, that should go.

> 2. The specification seems to cover both the package file format and
> the implementation. The file format I'm definitely interested in
> specifying, but I'm not so interested in specing the implementation. I
> understand you're trying to create a drop-in replacement for
> pkg-config. I have no issue with that. However, I'm really not
> interested in constraining the reference implementation in a spec. I
> wouldn't want to have to bump a spec if I added a command line switch
> or autoconf macro that someone found useful. I can't speak for Tollef,
> but I'd only be interested in defining the package format and the
> parts of the implementation that are vital to interpreting that
> format. I hope you understand.

FWIW, I agree with this: If people want to implement compatible
implementations, that's fine, but I don't want to be restrained by it.

If we are going to have a spec, it should have a version number and .pc
files should tell which spec version they are written against so
implementations can complain if the pc file is written against something
that's too new.

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are