How to setup an Autoconf project to make with GTK?

Question

how to setup my autoconf project to use GTK? There is only one source file (main.c). I already created all necessary files for autoconf, and when I type "make" it can't find the GTK include "gtk/gtk.h".

// make error

make[2]: Entering directory `/home/anon/projects/firstgtkprog/src' gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I.. -g -O2 -MT main.o -MD -MP -MF .deps/main.Tpo -c -o main.o main.c main.c:1:21: fatal error: gtk/gtk.h: No such file or directory compilation terminated.

// configure.ac file contents

AC_INIT([firstgtkprog], [1.0], [bug-developer@foda.com])

AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([-Wall -Werror foreign])

AC_PROG_CC

AC_CONFIG_HEADERS([config.h])

AC_CONFIG_FILES([ Makefile src/Makefile ])

AC_OUTPUT

Answer 1

GTK+ uses the pkg-config utility to provide the necessary compiler and library flags to development tools that build programs with the library. For example, pkg-config --cflags gtk+-3.0 prints out the flags to compile with GTK, and pkg-config --libs gtk+-3.0 prints out the libs.

To integrate this with the Autoconf build system, you need to use the PKG_CHECK_MODULES macro. This tutorial explains it in some details.