pkg-config

Introduction

pkg-config is computer software that provides a unified interface for querying installed libraries for the purpose of compiling software from its source code. pkg-config was originally designed for Linux but is now also available for the various BSDs, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris.

It outputs various information about installed libraries. This information may include:

  • Parameters for C or C++ compiler
  • Parameters for linker
  • Version of the package in question

The first implementation was written in shell. Later, it was rewritten in C using the GLib library.

Usage

Compute Systems Invocation Version(s)
Red Hat Linux (64-bit) % /util/bin/pkg-config 0.29.2 (default)

Notes

  1. How to set the package configuration path environment variable:

    % setenv PKG_CONFIG_PATH /util/glib/lib/pkgconfig:/util/atk/lib/pkgconfig:/util/pango/lib/pkgconfig:/util/cairo/lib/pkgconfig:/util/pixman/lib/pkgconfig:/util/freetype/lib/pkgconfig:/util/fontconfig/lib/pkgconfig:/util/libpng/lib/pkgconfig

References

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pkg-config
  2. http://pkg-config.freedesktop.org/wiki/