GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 319251
pkg-config's error output from PKG_CHECK_MODULES could be much better
Last modified: 2005-10-24 04:53:20 UTC
(This bug should be filed on pkg-config but I couldn't find that in the products list. Please move it if appropriate.) Epiphany for example uses the following PKG_CHECK_MODULES macro to check its dependencies: PKG_CHECK_MODULES([DEPENDENCIES], [\ glib-2.0 >= $GLIB_REQUIRED, \ gtk+-2.0 >= $GTK_REQUIRED, \ libxml-2.0 >= $LIBXML_REQUIRED \ libxslt >= $LIBXSLT_REQUIRED \ libgnomeui-2.0 >= $LIBGNOMEUI_REQUIRED \ libglade-2.0 >= $LIBGLADE_REQUIRED \ gnome-vfs-2.0 >= $LIBGNOMEVFS_REQUIRED \ gnome-vfs-module-2.0 \ gconf-2.0 \ gnome-desktop-2.0 >= $GNOME_DESKTOP_REQUIRED \ $STARTUP_NOTIFICATION_PACKAGE \ libgnomeprint-2.2 >= $LIBGNOMEPRINT_REQUIRED \ libgnomeprintui-2.2 >= $LIBGNOMEPRINTUI_REQUIRED \ ]) When any of the dependencies are not met it results in output like this: checking for DEPENDENCIES... configure: error: Package requirements ( glib-2.0 >= 2.8.0, gtk+-2.0 >= 2.8.3, libxml-2.0 >= 2.6.12 libxslt >= 1.1.7 libgnomeui-2.0 >= 2.6.0 libglade-2.0 >= 2.3.1 gnome-vfs-2.0 >= 2.9.2 gnome-vfs-module-2.0 gconf-2.0 gnome-desktop-2.0 >= 2.9.91 libgnomeprint-2.2 >= 2.4.0 libgnomeprintui-2.2 >= 2.4.0 ) were not met. Which is extremely hard to read and cryptic. The list of package requirements need to be formatted somehow and which package in the list of packages that was not found need to be displayed. As it is, you have to guess why pkg-config produced the error it did.
pkg-config development happens at freedesktop.org, and their website makes it virtually impossible to find their bugzilla. Visit https://bugs.freedesktop.org/
Please file pkg-config bugs at https://bugs.freedesktop.org/ If you look in config.log, you should get some more information about what failed though.