[Pkg-scicomp-devel] Pkg-config and numerical libraries

[Maurício]

 >> Do you think it could be possible to add pkg-config .pc files
 >> to numerical libraries in debian? I was going to write one for
 >> lapack and submit as a sugestion for lapack package maintainer

 > As Lapack maintainer, I won't mind adding it.

Great, thanks!

A .pc file goes into /usr/lib/pkgconfig and looks like this:

     prefix=/usr
     exec_prefix=${prefix}
     includedir=${prefix}/include
     libdir=${exec_prefix}/lib

     Name: lapack
     Description: Linear Algebra PACKage
     URL: http://www.netlib.org/lapack
     Version: 3.2.1
     Requires.private: foo >= 0.7
     Cflags: -I${includedir}
     Libs: -L${libdir} -llapack

The Require.private field should list other libraries this one
depends on, without re-exposing its symbols.

Do you think it's better that I write this file and send it, or do
you think it's better to generate it in the build process?

 >>  but then I thought: what if it were made standard for all
 >> numerical libraries to have proper pkg-config configuration?

 > Well, if you are developing only for Debian/Ubuntu, sure. But as
 > a software developer, usually, you need to think global (...)

That's what I would like. I will try, at least, to get all
libraries I see bindings to in Haskell to have pkg-config files in
main distributions and, if possible, upstream. But I think it's
easier to discuss this in distribution specific places first,
as people are more concerned about "dependency management" issues.

In the future, I believe it could be a good policy for all
distributions to have .pc files for all development library
packages. But I think I have to start with a few attemps
first before sugesting that in the appropriate lists.

Thanks,
Maurício