[ft-devel] using pkg-config

[Werner LEMBERG]

Folks,


FreeType's configure script currently uses the `AC_CHECK_LIB' m4 macro
to detect the presence of libz and libbz2.  For libpng, it uses the
`libpng-config' script.  I will soon need the HarfBuzz library which
doesn't provide a `harfbuzz-config' script.

Does it make sense to completely switch to pkg-config?  All of the
above libraries provide .pc files.  However, I wonder whether there
are situations where there usage of pkg-config is problematic.

A certain burden is that pkg-config itself must be installed (or
pkgconf, which does the same in a probably better way).  Is this a
hassle on some platforms?

If possible, I would like to avoid a hybrid approach (this is, first
checking for `foo.pc', then trying `foo-config', then using
`AC_CHECK_LIB[foo]').

Any advice is highly welcomed.


    Werner