Meson build system + C/C++ LibraryLink, help needed for portability check/fix (Windows &MacOs)

Question

As a proof of concept I have created a github repository that shows how to:

use the Meson build system to create a Mathematica package using LibraryLink functions

The goal is to provide an easy to use and portable solution for C/C++ projects using LibraryLink.

I have tested it under Linux for MMA version 10.0 and 11.2.

The idea is quite simple: we can have a look on how the CreateLibrary[] function works:

CreateLibrary["", "foo", 
              "ShellCommandFunction" -> Print, 
              "TargetDirectory" -> $TemporaryDirectory]

On my computer I get:

/usr/bin/gcc -shared -o "/tmp/Working-is231575-25315-2262167744-3/foo.so" -m64 -fPIC -O2 -I"/usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.2/SystemFiles/IncludeFiles/C" -I"/usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.2/SystemFiles/Links/MathLink/DeveloperKit/Linux-x86-64/CompilerAdditions" "/tmp/Working-is231575-25315-2262167744-3/foo.c" -L"/usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.2/SystemFiles/Links/MathLink/DeveloperKit/Linux-x86-64/CompilerAdditions" -L"/usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.2/SystemFiles/Libraries/Linux-x86-64" 2>&1

Nothing too surprising here: -shared -m64 -fPIC -O2 are the regular flags to create a dynamic lib, there are two include directories (-I flag) and two directories to search for mma dynamic libs (the -L flags that are forwarded to the linker)

To get the information for automatic build using Meson I process as follows:

libraryLinkIncludeDirectories = {FileNameJoin[{$InstallationDirectory,
     "SystemFiles", "IncludeFiles", "C"}], 
  FileNameJoin[{$InstallationDirectory, "SystemFiles", "Links", 
    "MathLink", "DeveloperKit", $SystemID, "CompilerAdditions"}]}
libraryInstallDirectory = {FileNameJoin[{$UserBaseDirectory, 
    "SystemFiles", "LibraryResources", $SystemID}]}
packageInstallDirectory = {FileNameJoin[{$UserBaseDirectory, 
    "Applications"}]}

which give for my computer running under Linux:

{"/usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.2/SystemFiles/IncludeFiles/C", "/usr/local/Wolfram/Mathematica/11.2/SystemFiles/Links/MathLink/ DeveloperKit/Linux-x86-64/CompilerAdditions"}

{"/home/picaud/.Mathematica/SystemFiles/LibraryResources/Linux-x86-64"}

{"/home/picaud/.Mathematica/Applications"}

where

• libraryLinkIncludeDirectories are the mma dynamic library directories
• libraryInstallDirectory is the user directory where to install the created dynamic library (the libXXX.so file).
• packageInstallDirectory is the user directory where to install the created package (the package.wl file).

Questions

I need your help because I only have access to computers under Linux and I want to check/fix the proposed approach to make it works for the Windows and MacOS OS.

1. In my meson.build files I use the wolfram command, but I am not sure it exists under Windows and MacOS, can you confirm that? (-> maybe I have to switch to the wolframscript command).
2. Under Windows and MacOS does the way I extract libraryLinkIncludeDirectories, libraryInstallDirectory, packageInstallDirectory makes sense/is correct??

Finally if you are interested, feel free to directly try the github repository I would be happy to accept fix/pull request.

---

update: now it works under Linux and MacOs. Still have no access to Windows machine so I cannot test it.

Answer 1

On Mac OS Mojave and Mathematica Version 11.3, the only modification required was to change find_program('wolfram') to find_program('wolframscript') in meson.build.

Sync'd my fork with your latest commit and it worked fine without any changes.

meson was installed by brew install meson.