docs/manual/adding-packages-meson.txt

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=== Infrastructure for Meson-based packages

[[meson-package-tutorial]]

==== +meson-package+ tutorial

http://mesonbuild.com[Meson] is an open source build system meant to be both
extremely fast, and, even more importantly, as user friendly as possible. It
uses https://ninja-build.org[Ninja] as a companion tool to perform the actual
build operations.

Let's see how to write a +.mk+ file for a Meson-based package, with an example:

------------------------------
01: ################################################################################
02: #
03: # foo
04: #
05: ################################################################################
06:
07: FOO_VERSION = 1.0
08: FOO_SOURCE = foo-$(FOO_VERSION).tar.gz
09: FOO_SITE = http://www.foosoftware.org/download
10: FOO_LICENSE = GPL-3.0+
11: FOO_LICENSE_FILES = COPYING
12: FOO_INSTALL_STAGING = YES
13:
14: FOO_DEPENDENCIES = host-pkgconf bar
15:
16: ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_BAZ),y)
17: FOO_CONF_OPTS += -Dbaz=true
18: FOO_DEPENDENCIES += baz
19: else
20: FOO_CONF_OPTS += -Dbaz=false
21: endif
22:
23: $(eval $(meson-package))
--------------------------------

The Makefile starts with the definition of the standard variables for package
declaration (lines 7 to 11).

On line line 23, we invoke the +meson-package+ macro that generates all the
Makefile rules that actually allows the package to be built.

In the example, +host-pkgconf+ and +bar+ are declared as dependencies in
+FOO_DEPENDENCIES+ at line 14 because the Meson build file of +foo+ uses
`pkg-config` to determine the compilation flags and libraries of package +bar+.

Note that it is not necessary to add +host-meson+ in the +FOO_DEPENDENCIES+
variable of a package, since this basic dependency is automatically added as
needed by the Meson package infrastructure.

If the "baz" package is selected, then support for the "baz" feature in "foo" is
activated by adding +-Dbaz=true+ to +FOO_CONF_OPTS+ at line 17, as specified in
the +meson_options.txt+ file in "foo" source tree. The "baz" package is also
added to +FOO_DEPENDENCIES+. Note that the support for +baz+ is explicitly
disabled at line 20, if the package is not selected.

To sum it up, to add a new meson-based package, the Makefile example can be
copied verbatim then edited to replace all occurences of +FOO+ with the
uppercase name of the new package and update the values of the standard
variables.

[[meson-package-reference]]

==== +meson-package+ reference

The main macro of the Meson package infrastructure is +meson-package+. It is
similar to the +generic-package+ macro. The ability to have target and host
packages is also available, with the +host-meson-package+ macro.

Just like the generic infrastructure, the Meson infrastructure works by defining
a number of variables before calling the +meson-package+ macro.

First, all the package metadata information variables that exist in the generic
infrastructure also exist in the Meson infrastructure: +FOO_VERSION+,
+FOO_SOURCE+, +FOO_PATCH+, +FOO_SITE+, +FOO_SUBDIR+, +FOO_DEPENDENCIES+,
+FOO_INSTALL_STAGING+, +FOO_INSTALL_TARGET+.

A few additional variables, specific to the Meson infrastructure, can also be
defined. Many of them are only useful in very specific cases, typical packages
will therefore only use a few of them.

* +FOO_CONF_ENV+, to specify additional environment variables to pass to
  +meson+ for the configuration step. By default, empty.

* +FOO_CONF_OPTS+, to specify additional options to pass to +meson+ for the
  configuration step. By default, empty.

* +FOO_NINJA_ENV+, to specify additional environment variables to pass to
  +ninja+, meson companion tool in charge of the build operations. By default,
  empty.