Re: [gentoo-dev] prune_libtool_files() and pkg-config dependency

[Mike Frysinger]

On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 6:02 PM, Michał Górny wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Aug 2012 17:50:16 -0400 Mike Frysinger wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 5:42 PM, Michał Górny wrote:
>> > In other words, pkg-config is only used when no other criteria
>> > allows it to classify the particular .la file as suitable for
>> > removal or not. Sadly, it's rather, ehm, unfriendly to ebuild
>> > developers who obviously don't even read the relevant part.
>> >
>> > Do you have any ideas how we can improve that?
>>
>> before the func executes pkg-config, run `has virtual/pkgconfig
>> ${DEPEND}` and spit an eqawarn if it's not found
>
> Ciaran will shot at me for doing that.

it isn't violating anything and can find real bugs.  i don't see a problem here.

>> > One thing that comes into my mind is finally making pkgconfig
>> > a required, implicit part of toolchain (or @system). Since we have
>> > pkgconf now, this is more feasible than before.
>>
>> i don't think making it part of the toolchain makes sense.  i'd rather
>> not add it to @system simply to keep a few packages from sometimes
>> failing.
>
> I'd add it to @system because a lot of packages actually need to DEPEND
> on pkgconfig because they use libraries using .pc files. And the number
> is going to increase, hopefully.

sure, but keeping things in @system doesn't make much sense:
 - there's a penalty (as noted in old threads)
 - it isn't actually required at runtime, so it's bloat on reduced systems

> Also, some people are probably going to try to get some pkgconf support
> directly into gcc, in form of '-something libfoo' to make it grab
> everything magically, I think.

if gcc itself runs `pkg-config` to look up libraries from other
packages, then we can add it to DEPEND, but if that's not currently
the case, the dependency doesn't make sense.
-mike