Re: [PATCH 0/6] build contrib/plugins using meson

[Pierrick Bouvier <pierrick.bouvier@linaro.org>]

On 8/14/24 23:00, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 15, 2024 at 1:37 AM Pierrick Bouvier
> <pierrick.bouvier@linaro.org> wrote:
>> Contrib plugins have been built out of tree so far, thanks to a Makefile.
>> However, it is quite inconvenient for maintenance, as we may break them,
>> especially for specific architectures.
>>
>> First patches are fixing warnings for existing plugins, then we add meson
>> support, and finally, we remove Makefile for contrib/plugins.
>>
>> Based on the proposal of Anton Kochkov on associated gitlab issue.
>> Solves: https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues/1710
> 
> Is the bug actually still there?
> 

Maybe the changes you did fixed the portability issue. I just added this 
"solves" because it's where the idea to compile with meson was presented 
initially.

> The Makefile explains why it was done this way:
> 
> # This Makefile example is fairly independent from the main makefile
> # so users can take and adapt it for their build. We only really
> # include config-host.mak so we don't have to repeat probing for
> # programs that the main configure has already done for us.
> 
> In other words we should also take into account that there is a
> documentation benefit to having a Makefile that works across Windows,
> Darwin and generic ELF Unices. Anyway Philippe, Akihiko and Alex are
> the best people to decide.
>  > One argument from moving contrib/plugins to meson is that the Windows
> case depends on libqemu_plugin_api.a which is built with meson(*);
> that said, libqemu_plugin_api.a should be installed - which would
> justify it being used from an "external" makefile.
>

You need meson to build this lib in the first place, so I guess that 
99.9% of the people writing a plugin will have a qemu source tree (with 
access to plugin headers), and first compile the lib.

I am not convinced by the scenario where people build this out of tree 
to be honest, but I may be wrong.

> Paolo
> 
> (*) by the way,
>