mesonbuild/meson

Meson needs native understanding of symbol version scripts

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#3,047 opened on Feb 12, 2018

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 (29 comments) (16 reactions) (0 assignees)Python (1,465 forks)batch import
compilersenhancementhelp wanted

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Description

Meson doesn't seem to understand much about linkers; most of the projects porting to meson do something like this:

mapfile = 'libgusb.ver'
vflag = '-Wl,--version-script,@0@/@1@'.format(meson.current_source_dir(), mapfile)
gusb = shared_library(
  'gusb',
  sources : [
    'gusb-context.c',
  ],
  soversion : lt_current,
  version : lt_version,
  dependencies : [
    libusb,
  ],
  link_args : vflag,
  link_depends : mapfile,
  install : true
)

Which is fine, unless you discover that OS-X doesn't support --version-script : https://github.com/hughsie/libgusb/issues/11

Rather than have to do evil things to the meson.build file to support OS-X, I would much prefer fr meson to know what a version-script is, rather than just dumping it in a command line. In the case of OS-X the version script could just be ignored. Ideas welcome, thanks!

Contributor guide

Research direction
Study how Meson currently handles link arguments and link depends. Understand symbol version scripts (GNU) and their equivalence on macOS (e.g., exported symbols list). Propose a new shared library keyword like 'symbol version map' that internally passes the correct linker flag per platform, ignoring on macOS if unsupported.
Tech stack
python
Domain
build systemdevtools
Issue type
Feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
PythonMeson internalslinker flags
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
65