[MonoDevelop] Autotools plugin.

[Scott Ellington]

hey Miguel,

On Fri, 2006-06-30 at 14:01 -0400, Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> Currently the pkg-config stuff happens at the project level, and I
> believe that this should happen at the library level (as class libraries
> are the ones that need this bit).

I'm not sure what you mean.  Maybe you could clarify?

Right now how it works is that it creates a pc file for the entire
solution.  It finds all buildable projects which are of type library
(dlls) and includes them in the Libs variable.  I'm not sure of a better
way.

> 
> I also think that it should probably be enabled by default for all class
> libraries as that is our mechanism to find/locate libraries (Lluis is
> talking about adding this feature to the GUI for the "Add References"
> bit, so it will fit nicely).

I'm not sure how I would do this.  How would I know which solution is a
class library?  In terms of MonoDevelop, creating a solution of type
'Library' just instantiates a base setup.  There is no information held
within the solution that specifies that this is what it is.  Maybe Lluis
has an idea, or maybe I am missing something.

Another question: This pkgconfig file allows people to compile against
the libraries, but it still doesn't help them at runtime.  Both Banshee
and MD have pc files set up this same way.  Though I understand that the
primary uses of their pc files would be plugins.

However, I suspect that we would want to enable people to release an
independent library upon which other applications could use.  I see on
the deployment guidelines page
( http://www.mono-project.com/Guidelines:Application_Deployment#Libraries_with_Unstable_APIs ) there is a defined process for doing this in a pc file.  This involves adding a separate variable with which consumers can use to copy the dlls into the base directory.  Yet, I have never seen this used.  So, should this be implemented?

This brings up another issue: Installation to GAC.  Probably that should
be implemented as well.  We would then need some notion of an unstable
versus a stable library in MD.  This could be something that the
autotools addin stores, but it may be worthwhile for MD to track it so
that others may use this info ( NAnt, etc. ).

Scott