variables given thru shell commands in *.pc files

[LRN]

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On 20.09.2013 15:44, Basile Starynkevitch wrote:
> I was thinking of adding some syntax to get pkg-config variables shell expanded. 
> So having in some *.pc a line like
>   somevar =| some-command
> would like the backquote or the $(...) notation in shells assign to somevar 
> the output given by some-command.
> 
> Then we might have a file mysql.pc which could e.g. contain
> 
>   ## file mysql.pc
>   ## command-expanded variables
>   version =| mysql_config --version
>   libdir =| mysql_config --variable=pkglibdir
>   mysql_cflags =| mysql_config --cflags
>   mysql_libs =| mysql_config --libs
> 
>   Name: mysql
>   Version: ${version}
>   Description: MySQL database version ${version}
>   Cflags: ${mysql_cflags}
>   Libs: ${mysql_libs}
>   ## eof mysql.pc
> 
> I would believe that such feature might be easy to implement (basically, calling popen).
That wouldn't work on W32, if pkg-config is not compiled against
Cygwin/MSYS or other compatibility layer (which is usually the case for
MinGW users).

IMO, .pc file generation should be patched in upstream. And if upstream
doesn't want it, package maintiners should patch it in locally (if the
system for which packages are made uses pkg-config heavily, for example,
if MELT is used in it).

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