Setting up Autotools for Vala project

Question

I'm attempting to setup an autotools build system for one of my Vala projects, here is what I've come up with so far.

configure.ac

AC_INIT(White House, 1.0)
AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR(src/Window.vala)

AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE

AC_PROG_CC
AC_PROG_CC_STDC
AM_PROG_VALAC([0.7.0])
AC_PROG_INSTALL

WHITE_HOUSE_PACKAGES="--pkg gio-2.0 --pkg gtk+-3.0 --pkg gee-0.8 --target-glib 2.32 --pkg json-glib-1.0"
PKG_CHECK_MODULES(WHITE_HOUSE, [gio-2.0 gtk+-3.0 gee-0.8 json-glib-1.0])
AC_SUBST(WHITE_HOUSE_CFLAGS)
AC_SUBST(WHITE_HOUSE_LIBS)
AC_SUBST(WHITE_HOUSE_PACKAGES)

AC_CONFIG_FILES([
   Makefile
   resources/white-house.desktop
   resources/Makefile
   src/Makefile
])
AC_OUTPUT

Makefile.am

SUBDIRS = resources src
EXTRA_DIST = autogen.sh

src/Makefile.am

AM_CPPFLAGS = $(WHITE_HOUSE_CFLAGS)
bin_PROGRAMS = white-house

white_house_SOURCES = AutomapDialog.vala Drawable.vala Map.vala Preferences.vala Room.vala TextView.vala AutoMapper.vala Handle.vala Passage.vala RoomDialog.vala Tab.vala Window.vala
white_house_VALAFLAGS = $(WHITE_HOUSE_PACKAGES)

white_house_CFLAGS = $(WHITE_HOUSE_CFLAGS)

white_house_LDFLAGS = $(WHITE_HOUSE_LIBS)

resources/Makefile.am

desktopdir = $(datadir)/applications
desktop_DATA = white-house.desktop

icondir = $(datadir)/icons
icon_DATA = white-house.svg

When I run make I get a lot of errors in the form of src/File.c:####: undefined reference to some_function (). This looks to me like it's not passing the CFLAGS correctly. What did I do wrong?

Edit: After further research I discovered that 'undefined reference' errors can occur if the sources files are passed to gcc after the libs. Here is the command make is using.

gcc -std=gnu99 -pthread -I/usr/local/include/gee-0.8 -I/usr/include/gtk-3.0 -I/usr/include/at-spi2-atk/2.0 -I/usr/include/at-spi-2.0 -I/usr/include/dbus-1.0 -I/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dbus-1.0/include -I/usr/include/gtk-3.0 -I/usr/include/gio-unix-2.0/ -I/usr/include/mirclient -I/usr/include/mircommon -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/harfbuzz -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/atk-1.0 -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pixman-1 -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/include/libpng12 -I/usr/include/gdk-pixbuf-2.0 -I/usr/include/libpng12 -I/usr/include/json-glib-1.0 -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/glib-2.0/include  -g -O2 -L/usr/local/lib -lgtk-3 -lgdk-3 -lpangocairo-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -latk-1.0 -lcairo-gobject -lcairo -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lgee-0.8 -ljson-glib-1.0 -lgio-2.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lglib-2.0   -o white-house white_house-Window.o

As you can see the source files are the last thing on the line. If I move them before the -l arguments it compiles fine. So the question is: Why is the Makefile putting them in the wrong order?

RedHatter RedHatter · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-23T20:48:15

Looks like I should be using LDADD instead of LDFLAGS. My new Makefile.am is as follows.

bin_PROGRAMS = white-house

white_house_SOURCES = AutomapDialog.vala Drawable.vala Map.vala Preferences.vala Room.vala TextView.vala AutoMapper.vala Handle.vala Passage.vala RoomDialog.vala Tab.vala Window.vala
white_house_VALAFLAGS = $(WHITE_HOUSE_PACKAGES) --target-glib 2.32
white_house_CFLAGS = $(WHITE_HOUSE_CFLAGS)
white_house_LDADD = $(WHITE_HOUSE_LIBS) -lm

Setting up Autotools for Vala project

2 Answers