CODEWITHSUNDEEP
buildmeson-build
AcidMuffin
AcidMuffin

Reputation: 11

Guidance needed: How do I link libraries in Meson?

I'm a C++ beginner and started learning about build systems. After looking for a more beginner-friendly system I came across Meson (CMake does not seem too appealing for a noob who just wants to throw a couple of files together). It looks pretty straightforward but as with most build systems (that I looked at) the documentation seems lacking in the sense that it assumes you already know how building works (which somehow reminds me of the chicken-egg problem).

I'm on a Windows 10 machine and use MSYS2 stack with MinGW64 and Meson installed as a package. I wrote some basic code to learn how to split it into multiple files for manageability. So I have a bare-bones project like this:

Cpp-App

I figured out how to include just the header file with include_directories() but I don't know how to link both of them. I also learned (kinda) how to build a library using those two, but not how to "use" it. For example, the program links and compiles successfully but when I run the program it says:

"error while loading shared libraries: libutils.dll: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

although the resulting file is, in fact, inside the build directory.

Could you, please, guide me where to dig, and on a more fundamental note, where would a beginner learn stuff like this? Do I need to learn Make first before learning a modern build system? C++ books don't teach this, official docs and beginner tutorials show isolated and/or irrelevant examples =\

Main meson.build

project('cpp-app', 'cpp',
  version : '0.1',
  default_options : ['warning_level=3', 'cpp_std=c++14'])

subdir('./mylib')
myinc = include_directories ('./mylib')

executable('cpp-app',
           'main.cpp',
           include_directories : myinc,
           link_with : mylib,
           install : true)

meson.build for the library:

#project('utils', 'cpp')
mylib = library('utils', sources : ['utils.h', 'utils.cpp'])

Upvotes: 0

Views: 4155

Answers (1)

AcidMuffin
AcidMuffin

Reputation: 11

So I finally was able to solve the problem. In this particular case you build the library from the main build file where you show it where the library files are (*.h and *.cpp). I removed meson.build from mylib folder and edited the main meson.build file like this:

project('cpp-app', 'cpp',
version : '0.1',
default_options : ['warning_level=3', 'cpp_std=c++14'])
myinc = include_directories ('mylib')
mylibpath = 'mylib/'
utilslib = shared_library('utils', sources : [mylibpath + 'utils.h', mylibpath + 'utils.cpp'])
executable('cpp-app',
           'main.cpp',
           include_directories : myinc,
           link_with : utilslib,
           install : true)

Upvotes: 1

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