mesonbuild/meson

Inconsistency between library suffix generated on windows and link name created when using dependency()

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#1,907 opened on Jun 6, 2017

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Description

Meson wants to create libraries with the style liblibname.a even on Windows. I can deal with that.

Note the following in the meson build.py source:

    # By default a static library is named libfoo.a even on Windows because
    # MSVC does not have a consistent convention for what static libraries
    # are called. The MSVC CRT uses libfoo.lib syntax but nothing else uses
    # it and GCC only looks for static libraries called foo.lib and
    # libfoo.a. However, we cannot use foo.lib because that's the same as
    # the import library. Using libfoo.a is ok because people using MSVC
    # always pass the library filename while linking anyway.

However, when using a pkg-config dependency setup for the library, meson will try to link with libname.lib, not the liblibname.a that was created.

Summary: In project A: meson creates libs with liblibname.a format in C:/lib/ folder (when installed) a .pc file is created using the pkg.generate() command (although I have to manually change \ to /)

in Project B: I want to link with the library from project A. meson finds the .pc file ok however, generates link command -llibname.lib

These behaviours are inconsistent

Contributor guide

Tech stack
python
Domain
build system
Issue type
bug
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.
half day
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
mostly clear
Prerequisites
Understanding of Meson build systemFamiliarity with Windows library naming conventions
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
30
Research direction
Investigate the library naming logic in mesonbuild's build.py (the comment indicates the rationale for libfoo.a on Windows) and the pkg config file generation in pkgconfig.py. The issue is about inconsistency between the generated library filename (liblibname.a) and the link name derived from the .pc file ( llibname.lib). The fix could involve aligning the naming or adjusting the pkgconfig module to produce the correct link flags. Since the issue has no recent activity (last comment in 2017), the first step is to confirm the current behavior on Windows with the latest Meson version.
Inconsistency between library suffix generated on windows and link name created when using dependency() · mesonbuild/meson#1907 | Good First Issue