Re: [libgpiod][WIP PATCH 0/2] Convert the build from autotools to meson

[Bartosz Golaszewski <brgl@xxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Dec 8, 2022 at 5:23 AM Andrew Jeffery <andrew@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, 6 Dec 2022, at 05:25, Bartosz Golaszewski wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 5, 2022 at 2:22 PM Andrew Jeffery <andrew@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> Based on a recent poke [1] and in-between meetings I've put together a
> >> WIP series that converts libgpiod's build from autotools to meson. As
> >> far as I'm aware the meson build supports all the significant options to
> >> enable or disable features exposed by the autotools build:
> >>
> >> * Tests
> >> * Tools
> >>   * Interactive gpioset
> >> * Bindings
> >>   * C++
> >>   * Python
> >>   * Rust
> >> * Documentation
> >>   * Manpages
> >>   * Doxygen
> >>
> >> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAMRc=Mda8UnyH+_GxeX_4MyKd+DPN0BVH5K+J+VWnMJNC1vwTQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
> >>
> >> Meson has pretty good support for handling python and so the patch does
> >> away with setup.py entirely.
> >
> > Eek! No, please do keep setup.py. Autotools too is capable of building
> > python C extensions on its own and it's what we use in v1 but I want
> > the python code to be built the standard python way. I actually plan
> > to post libgpiod v2 on pypi and split out building python bindings
> > into a separate bitbake recipe in meta-openembedded using the
> > setuptools3 class.
> >
> > So let's keep setup.py and just call it from meson.
>
> I've poked at this for a little while and it's not a great experience.
> Meson's design pushes back against calling out in this way, and I don't
> really have the motivation to carry on fighting it to make it do what
> you request. Unless someone else has that motivation, I think there are
> two options if meson is still desired:
>
> 1. Use the meson python support as posted in this series
> 2. Split out the python (and probably rust) bindings, keeping the
>    dependency relationships pointing in one direction and using the
>    language's own package management tooling.
>
> Given there's nothing to do in the install phase for rust we don't have
> as big of an issue there, but it is problematic for python.
>
> Let me know which way you want to go, including if you want to abandon
> meson :)
>

No, I don't want to abandon it. What is the problem exactly? Is meson
unable to simply add external commands to its ninja output?

Bart