meson - Man Page

a high productivity build system

Examples (TL;DR)

Description

Meson is a build system designed to optimize programmer productivity. It aims to do this by providing simple, out-of-the-box support for modern software development tools and practices, such as unit tests, coverage reports, Valgrind, Ccache and the like.

The main Meson executable provides many subcommands to access all the functionality.

The setup command

Using Meson is simple and follows the common two-phase process of most build systems. First you run Meson to configure your build:

meson setup [ options ] [ build directory ] [ source directory ]

Note that the build directory must be different from the source directory. Meson does not support building inside the source directory and attempting to do that leads to an error.

After a successful configuration step you can build the source by running the actual build command in the build directory. The default backend of Meson is Ninja, which can be invoked like this.

ninja [ target ]

You only need to run the Meson command once: when you first configure your build dir. After that you just run the build command. Meson will autodetect changes in your source tree and regenerate all files needed to build the project.

The setup command is the default operation. If no actual command is specified, Meson will assume you meant to do a setup. That means that you can set up a build directory without the setup command like this:

meson [ options ] [ build directory ] [ source directory ]

options

--version

print version number

--help

print command line help

The configure command

meson configure provides a way to configure a Meson project from the command line. Its usage is simple:

meson configure [ build directory ] [ options to set ]

If build directory is omitted, the current directory is used instead.

If no parameters are set, meson configure will print the value of all build options to the console.

To set values, use the -D command line argument like this.

meson configure -Dopt1=value1 -Dopt2=value2

The dist command

meson dist generates a release archive.

meson dist [ options ]

options

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

-C WD

directory to cd into before running

--allow-dirty

Allow even when repository contains uncommitted changes.

--formats FORMATS

Comma separated list of archive types to create.  Supports xztar (default), gztar, and zip.

--include-subprojects

Include source code of subprojects that have been used for the build.

--no-tests

Do not build and test generated packages.

The install command

meson install installs the project.

meson install [ options ]

options

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

-C WD

directory to cd into before running

--no-rebuild

Do not rebuild before installing.

--only-changed

Only overwrite files that are older than the copied file.

--quiet

Do not print every file that was installed.

--destdir DESTDIR

Sets or overrides DESTDIR environment.  (Since 0.57.0)

--dry-run, -n

Doesn't actually install, but print logs. (Since 0.57.0)

--skip-subprojects [SKIP_SUBPROJECTS]

Do not install files from given subprojects. (Since 0.58.0)

--tags TAGS

Install only targets having one of the given tags. (Since 0.60.0)

--strip

Strip targets even if strip option was not set during configure. (Since 0.62.0)

The introspect command

Meson introspect is a command designed to make it simple to  integrate with other tools, such as IDEs. The output of this command is in JSON.

meson introspect [ build directory ] [ option ]

If build directory is omitted, the current directory is used instead.

options

--targets

print all top level targets (executables, libraries, etc)

--target-files

print the source files of the given target

--buildsystem-files

print all files that make up the build system (meson.build, meson.options, meson_options.txt etc)

--tests

print all unit tests

--help

print command line help

The init command

meson init creates a new project

meson init [ options ] [ sourcefile... ]

positional arguments

sourcefile...

source files. default: all recognized files in current directory

options

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

-C WD

directory to cd into before running

-n NAME, --name NAME

project name. default: name of current directory

-e EXECUTABLE, --executable EXECUTABLE

executable name. default: project name

-d DEPS, --deps DEPS

dependencies, comma-separated

-l {c,cpp,cs,cuda,d,fortran,java,objc,objcpp,rust,vala}, --language {c,cpp,cs,cuda,d,fortran,java,objc,objcpp,rust,vala}

project language. default: autodetected based on source files

-b, --build

build after generation

--builddir BUILDDIR

directory for build

-f, --force

force overwrite of existing files and directories.

--type {executable,library}

project type. default: executable based project

--version VERSION

project version. default: 0.1

The test command

meson test is a helper tool for running test suites of projects using Meson. The default way of running tests is to invoke the default build command:

ninja [ test ]

meson test provides a richer set of tools for invoking tests.

meson test automatically rebuilds the necessary targets to run tests when used with the Ninja backend. Upon build failure, meson test will return an exit code of 125. This return code tells git bisect run to skip the current commit. Thus bisecting using git can be done conveniently like this.

git bisect run meson test -C build_dir

options

--repeat

run tests as many times as specified

--gdb

run tests under gdb

--list

list all available tests

--wrapper

invoke all tests via the given wrapper (e.g. valgrind)

-C

Change into the given directory before running tests (must be root of build directory).

--suite

run tests in this suite

--no-suite

do not run tests in this suite

--no-stdsplit

do not split stderr and stdout in test logs

--benchmark

run benchmarks instead of tests

--logbase

base of file name to use for writing test logs

--num-processes

how many parallel processes to use to run tests

--verbose

do not redirect stdout and stderr

-t

a multiplier to use for test timeout values (usually something like 100 for Valgrind)

--setup

use the specified test setup

The wrap command

Wraptool is a helper utility to manage source dependencies using the online wrapdb service.

meson wrap < command > [ options ]

You should run this command in the top level source directory of your project.

Commands

list

list all available projects

search

search projects by name

install

install a project with the given name

update

update the specified project to latest available version

info

show available versions of the specified project

status

show installed and available versions of currently used subprojects

The subprojects command

meson subprojects is used to manage subprojects.

meson subprojects [ options ] [ command ]

options

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

commands

update

Update all subprojects from wrap files

checkout

Checkout a branch (git only)

download

Ensure subprojects are fetched, even if not in use. Already downloaded subprojects are not modified. This can be used to pre-fetch all subprojects and avoid downloads during configure.

foreach

Execute a command in each subproject directory.

purge

Remove all wrap-based subproject artifacts

packagefiles

Manage the packagefiles overlay

The rewrite command

meson rewrite modifies the project definition.

meson rewrite [ options ] [ command ]

options

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

-s SRCDIR, --sourcedir SRCDIR

Path to source directory.

-V, --verbose

Enable verbose output

-S, --skip-errors

Skip errors instead of aborting

commands

target (tgt)

Modify a target

kwargs

Modify keyword arguments

default-options (def)

Modify the project default options

command (cmd)

Execute a JSON array of commands

The compile command

meson compile builds the project.

meson compile [ options ] [ TARGET... ]

positional arguments

TARGET

Targets to build. Target has the following format: [PATH_TO_TARGET/]TARGET_NAME.TARGET_SUFFIX[:TARGET_TYPE].

options

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

--clean

Clean the build directory.

-C WD

directory to cd into before running

-j JOBS, --jobs JOBS

The number of worker jobs to run (if supported). If the value is less than 1 the build program will guess.

-l LOAD_AVERAGE, --load-average LOAD_AVERAGE

The system load average to try to maintain (if supported).

-v, --verbose

Show more verbose output.

--ninja-args NINJA_ARGS

Arguments to pass to `ninja` (applied only on `ninja` backend).

--vs-args VS_ARGS

Arguments to pass to `msbuild` (applied only on `vs` backend).

--xcode-args XCODE_ARGS

Arguments to pass to `xcodebuild` (applied only on `xcode` backend).

The devenv command

meson devenv runs commands in the developer environment.

meson devenv [ options ] [ command ]

positional arguments

command

Command to run in developer environment (default: interactive shell)

options

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

-C BUILDDIR

Path to build directory

--workdir WORKDIR, -w WORKDIR

Directory to cd into before running (default: builddir, Since 1.0.0)

--dump [DUMP]

Only print required environment (Since 0.62.0) Takes an optional file path (Since 1.1.0)

--dump-format {sh,export,vscode}

Format used with --dump (Since 1.1.0)

The env2mfile command

meson env2mfile converts the current environment to a cross or native file.

meson env2mfile [ options ]

options

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

--debarch DEBARCH

The dpkg architecture to generate.

--gccsuffix GCCSUFFIX

A particular gcc version suffix if necessary.

-o OUTFILE

The output file.

--cross

Generate a cross compilation file.

--native

Generate a native compilation file.

--system SYSTEM

Define system for cross compilation.

--subsystem SUBSYSTEM

Define subsystem for cross compilation.

--kernel KERNEL

Define kernel for cross compilation.

--cpu CPU

Define cpu for cross compilation.

--cpu-family CPU_FAMILY

Define cpu family for cross compilation.

--endian {big,little}

Define endianness for cross compilation.

The format command

meson format formats a meson source file.

meson format [ options ] [ sources... ]

positional arguments

sources...

meson source files

options

-h, --help

show this help message and exit

-q, --check-only

exit with 1 if files would be modified by meson format

-i, --inplace

format files in-place

-r, --recursive

recurse subdirs (requires --check-only or --inplace option)

-c meson.format, --configuration meson.format

read configuration from meson.format

-e, --editor-config

try to read configuration from .editorconfig

-o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT

output file (implies having exactly one input)

Exit Status

0

Successful.

1

Usage error, or an error parsing or executing meson.build.

2

Internal error.

125

meson test could not rebuild the required targets.

See Also

http://mesonbuild.com/

https://wrapdb.mesonbuild.com/

Info

July 2024 meson 1.5.1