Making glib: ../libtool: line 6003: cd: (libdir): No such file or directory

Question

I cannot make glib. On a kubuntu installation, I run ./configure without any options. But what I run make, I get the following error:

make[4]: Entering directory `/home/software/glib/glib-2.40.0/gobject'
  CCLD     libgobject-2.0.la
../libtool: line 6003: cd: (libdir): No such file or directory
libtool: link: cannot determine absolute directory name of `(libdir)'

As far as I am aware, all the dependencies are met. I tried to set libdir or LIBDIR as a configure option: libdir=/usr/local/lib/ && ./configure

I have been searching the net, tried compiling an older version of glib but I am still completely lost.

[Edit] It appears that the following search results are relevant:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=182353

Hi,I also get the same problem when I cross compilig the glib. Then,I finally solved the problem by set the LIBFFI_LIBS and LIBFFI_CFLAGS. My problem was because I just build libffi simply, but it need to fix to install header in the right place (/usr/include) and modify the /usr/lib/pkgconfig/libffi.pc .

I also compiled libffi myself, without any specific configuration options.

and

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2014-04/msg00056.html

What is the output of "pkg-config --libs libffi" on your system?
-L\$(libdir) -lffi

-> Bingo! Good question :-)

In my case, it's:

~/download/software/glib/glib-2.40.0 $ grep  -H '^LIBFFI' */Makefile
build/Makefile:LIBFFI_CFLAGS = -I/usr/local/lib/libffi-3.1/include  
build/Makefile:LIBFFI_LIBS = -L\$\(libdir\) -lffi  
docs/Makefile:LIBFFI_CFLAGS = -I/usr/local/lib/libffi-3.1/include  
docs/Makefile:LIBFFI_LIBS = -L\$\(libdir\) -lffi  
gio/Makefile:LIBFFI_CFLAGS = -I/usr/local/lib/libffi-3.1/include  
gio/Makefile:LIBFFI_LIBS = -L\$\(libdir\) -lffi  
glib/Makefile:LIBFFI_CFLAGS = -I/usr/local/lib/libffi-3.1/include  
glib/Makefile:LIBFFI_LIBS = -L\$\(libdir\) -lffi  
gmodule/Makefile:LIBFFI_CFLAGS = -I/usr/local/lib/libffi-3.1/include  
gmodule/Makefile:LIBFFI_LIBS = -L\$\(libdir\) -lffi  
gobject/Makefile:LIBFFI_CFLAGS = -I/usr/local/lib/libffi-3.1/include  
gobject/Makefile:LIBFFI_LIBS = -L\$\(libdir\) -lffi  
gthread/Makefile:LIBFFI_CFLAGS = -I/usr/local/lib/libffi-3.1/include  
gthread/Makefile:LIBFFI_LIBS = -L\$\(libdir\) -lffi  
m4macros/Makefile:LIBFFI_CFLAGS = -I/usr/local/lib/libffi-3.1/include  
m4macros/Makefile:LIBFFI_LIBS = -L\$\(libdir\) -lffi  
tests/Makefile:LIBFFI_CFLAGS = -I/usr/local/lib/libffi-3.1/include  
tests/Makefile:LIBFFI_LIBS = -L\$\(libdir\) -lffi  

After reading the above, I tried the following but the result is the same (and the output of the grep command above is the same):

  LIBFFI_LIBS=/usr/local/lib/ && ./configure 

Let me know what variables, settings or information to provide that could make debugging this problem easier.

[Edit 2] I found this file: /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/libffi.pc with the following content:

prefix=/usr/local
exec_prefix=${prefix}
libdir=${exec_prefix}/lib
toolexeclibdir=$(libdir)
includedir=${libdir}/libffi-3.1/include

Name: libffi
Description: Library supporting Foreign Function Interfaces
Version: 3.1
Libs: -L${toolexeclibdir} -lffi
Cflags: -I${includedir}

I am not sure what values to replace by what, but I'll try...

Answer 1

I managed to compile glib.

The problem was indeed in the file /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/libffi.pc which I quoted in the second edit to the question.

The line:

toolexeclibdir=$(libdir)

should be changed to

toolexeclibdir=${libdir}

in order to conform to the pkg-config syntax.

Having done so, I could finally make glib without problems.

There are two easier follow up questions that you may post as an answer for me to accept:
1) Is the faulty syntax in libffi.pc a bug in libffi itself? Who is responsible for creating the .pc files? [Edit: Looking at the source code of libffi, it seems that they are responsible for the original bug. I am going to report it so that it gets fixed. Thanks.]
2) what can I learn from this whole bug? I wasted a lot of time debugging this and searching for a solution. What trick or know-how would have helped me find the solution quiker?