Meson — a new build system

Finnish developer Jussi Pakkanen was frustrated by existing build systems with foolish syntax in configuration files and unexpected behavior [1]. During the Christmas season of 2012, he therefore decided to develop his own build system that would run fast, be reliable and easy to use, run on all major operating systems, and integrate important test tools like Valgrind.Just two months later, Pakkanen published a first version of his build system, which, as a trained physicist, he named for the Meson particle. Since then, the technology has advanced quickly. Version 0.17.0 – the latest version when this article was written – is already extremely stable despite its low version number and contains all the features planned by the program author.

Meson builds executables and libraries and supports multiple directories for different builds from the same source. The flexible configuration language is easy to learn, opens many possibilities to the developer, and supports if statements.

Presentable Features

Meson is written entirely in Python 3 and is released under Apache License 2.0. One minor drawback, however, is that, currently, Meson can only handle source code in the programming languages, C, C++, Java, and Vala. Meson does not bundle the source code into the appropriate compiler itself; rather, it simply generates configuration files for an existing build system. Under Linux, Meson generates build files for the relatively unknown but quite nimble Ninja [2] mini-build system. Alternatively, Meson outputs project files for Visual Studio 2010 or Xcode. Meson refers to all of these external tools as back ends.

[...]

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Gnome Recipes

    Cutting recipes out of magazines and attaching them to the fridge is a thing of the past. Today, Gnome Recipes is your friendly kitchen helper.

  • Fedora 26 Beta Comes with New Features

    The workstation comes with the latest Gnome desktop environment and support for many application build systems.

  • Buildroot

    Whether you need a tiny OS for 1MB of flash memory or a complex Linux with a graphical stack, you can quickly set up a working operating system using Buildroot.

  • NEWS

    Updates on technologies, trends, and tools

  • Qmake for Qt

    Qt’s own build system Qmake is often overlooked for larger projects, but many experienced developers appreciate Qmake support for shadow builds and pre- or post-build dependencies.

comments powered by Disqus
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters

Support Our Work

Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

Learn More

News