Weston versioning (Re: [PATCH weston 6/6] libweston: do not use weston version in libweston.pc)

[Jan Engelhardt]

On Monday 2016-07-11 16:44, Emil Velikov wrote:
>> Without pkgconfig supporting some new alias tag (hint, hint) to cover
>> such a case,
>No idea what such a "alias tag" is supposed to do/look like. Do you
>have examples ?

Proposed concept would be to make pkgconfig recognize
a new Alias directive:
 gtk-2.0.pc:
  Name: gtk-2.0
  Version: 2
  Alias: gtk
  @OTHER_TYPICAL_FIELDS@
 gtk-3.0.pc:
  Name: foo-3.0
  Version: 3
  Alias: gtk
Result (recap):
 A single PKG_CHECK_MODULESM([gtk], [gtk >= 2]) call may be used instead of
 the usual two or more.


>> I predict that whoever uses libfoo-LotsANumbersHere
>> limits themselves to 3 or maybe 4 PKG_CHECK_MODULES calls, because it
>> is looking real silly.
>>
>If (and that's a _huge_ if) they support more than 3-4 versions of
>libfoo, then the configure.ac will be the least ugly thing.

Heh, true: The projects which do use foo-N.pc naming move about in
slow cycles (we had dbus-1, gtk-2, libnl-3 for a long time now), and
if they change, it can be assured they threw *everything* over the
fence.

Those who have just foo.pc are kind of the Linux kernel type: it
changes a bit here and there, and every now and then, and external
components with new failed builds are comparatively easily fixable.


This should not be overdiscussed; just pick something already. {1:
Either it will work out, and all is good, or it will not work out,
gets changed and then goto 1.} :p
^ That always worked out so far.