pkgconfig

pkgconfig is a Python module to interface with the pkg-config command-line tool for Python 3.9+.

The pkg-config command-line tool typically comes from a package either called pkg-config (the original implementation) or pkgconf (a more recent, improved reimplementation intended as a drop-in replacement).

The pkgconfig module can be used to

• find all pkg-config packages

  >>> packages = pkgconfig.list_all()
  

• check if a package exists

  >>> pkgconfig.exists('glib-2.0')
  True
  

• check if a package meets certain version requirements

  >>> pkgconfig.installed('glib-2.0', '< 2.26')
  False
  

• return the version

  >>> pkgconfig.modversion('glib-2.0')
  '2.56.3'
  

• query CFLAGS and LDFLAGS

  >>> pkgconfig.cflags('glib-2.0')
  '-I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include'
  
  >>> pkgconfig.libs('glib-2.0')
  '-lglib-2.0'
  

• get all variables defined for a package:

  >>> pkgconfig.variables('glib-2.0')
  {u'exec_prefix': u'/usr'}
  

• parse the output to build extensions with setup.py

  >>> d = pkgconfig.parse('glib-2.0 gtk+-2.0')
  >>> d['libraries']
  [u'gtk+-2.0', u'glib-2.0']
  

  or

  >>> ext = Extension('foo', ['foo.c'])
  >>> # sets extension attributes as needed
  >>> pkgconfig.configure_extension(ext, 'glib-2.0 gtk+-2.0')
  

  The pkgconfig.parse function returns a dictionary of lists. The lists returned are accurate representations of the equivalent pkg-config call's results, both in content and order.

If pkg-config is not on the PATH, an EnvironmentError is raised.

The pkgconfig module is licensed under the MIT license.

Changelog

Version 1.6.0

• Drop support for Python < 3.9, support 3.9 .. 3.14.
• README: clarify pkg-config and pkgconf, #75
• Switch CI from Travis to GitHub Actions; test on all supported Python versions.
• Use src/ layout for project, fixes #36. Also move tests and test data to tests/.
• Replace deprecated distutils with setuptools to make tests work on Python 3.12; fixes #64.
• Fix configure_extension for empty cflags or libs.

Version 1.5.5

• Make tests more robust by sorting.

Version 1.5.4

• Adjust pyproject.toml and drop Python 2 support

Version 1.5.3

• Add configure_extension API

Version 1.5.2

• Update poetry dependency
• Improve CI

Version 1.5.0

• Use poetry instead of setuptools directly
• Fix #42: raise exception if package is missing
• Fix version parsing for openssl-like version numbers, fixes #32
• Fix #31: expose --modversion
• Fix #30: strip whitespace from variable names

Version 1.4.0

• Add boolean static keyword to output private libraries as well
• Raise original OSError as well

Version 1.3.1

• Fix compatibility problems with Python 2.6

Version 1.3.0

• Add variables() API to query defined variables
• Disable Python 3.2 and enable Python 3.5 and 3.6 tests
• Fix #16: handle spaces of values in .pc files correctly

Version 1.2.1 and 1.2.2

Bugfix releases on December 1 and 2, 2016.

• Include the data folder in the distribution in order to run tests
• Improve the tests

Version 1.2.0

Released on November 30th, 2016.

• Potential break: switch from result set to list
• Expose the --list-all query
• Added support for the PKG_CONFIG environment variable

Version 1.1.0

Released on November 6th, 2013.

• Multiple packages can now be parsed with a single call to .parse.

Version 1.0.0

First release on September 8th, 2013.