[CMake] pkg-config at Windows Command Prompt

[Brandon Van Every]

On 9/27/07, Alan W. Irwin <irwin at beluga.phys.uvic.ca> wrote:
> On 2007-09-27 20:10+0200 Hendrik Sattler wrote:
>
> > Am Donnerstag 27 September 2007 schrieb Félix C. Morency:
> >> The use of
> >> pkgconfig is prohibited, just like shell scripts and env. variables. The
> >> solution has to be as portable as it can be (win32, linux, macosx, etc.)
> >
> > pkgconfig _is_ portable. It works on all the mentioned platforms, AFAIK.
>
> To reinforce Hendrik's point, http://pkg-config.freedesktop.org/wiki/ has the
> following to say:
>
> "pkg-config works on multiple platforms: Linux and other UNIX-like operating
> systems, Mac OS X and Windows. It does not require anything but a reasonably
> well working C compiler and a C library, but can use an installed glib if
> that is present. (A copy of glib 1.2.8 is shipped together with pkg-config
> and this is sufficient for pkg-config to compile and work properly.)"

If you look at the current source release, you will see that it is an
Autoconf build.  There is no other build available.  On Windows that
presupposes the use of a Cygwin or MSYS shell to build pkgconfig.
README.win32 implies that if you build with MSYS, it's supposed to
work with MSVC also.  But how strong is this guarantee that it's
"supposed to" work?  There are no Windows binaries of pkg-config
available on the website.  Googling around, I don't see any kind of
self-contained pkg-config.exe for use on the Windows Command Prompt.
I do see some .exe's that are part of Cygwin or MSYS toolchains.

Questions:

1) does pkg-config.exe work from the Windows Command Prompt,
independent of any MSYS shell environment that was used to build it?
i.e. is it really "native" ?

2) given the build constraints and the lack of obvious deployed
binaries, is anyone actually making production use of it in
conjunction with MSVC?  from the Command Prompt?

To a Windows native developer this tool smells bad.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every