Pkg-config
Software development tool for querying library dependency information
title: "Pkg-config" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["computer-libraries", "freedesktop.org", "linux-configuration-utilities"] description: "Software development tool for querying library dependency information" topic_path: "technology/operating-systems" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pkg-config" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Software development tool for querying library dependency information ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | pkg-config |
| title | pkg-config |
| logo | |
| screenshot | |
| author | James Henstridge; rewritten by Havoc Pennington |
| developer | Tollef Fog Heen / freedesktop.org |
| released | or earlier |
| repo | |
| latest release version | 0.29.2 |
| latest release date | |
| latest preview date | |
| programming language | C |
| operating system | Unix-like |
| language count | |
| genre | Programming tool |
| license | GNU GPL |
| website | |
| :: |
| name = pkg-config | title = pkg-config | logo = | logo caption = | logo_size = | logo_alt = | screenshot = | caption = | screenshot_size = | screenshot_alt = | collapsible = | author = James Henstridge; rewritten by Havoc Pennington | developer = Tollef Fog Heen / freedesktop.org | released = or earlier | repo = | discontinued = | latest release version = 0.29.2 | latest release date = | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | programming language = C | operating system = Unix-like | platform = | size = | language = | language count = | language footnote = | genre = Programming tool | license = GNU GPL | alexa = | website = | standard = | AsOf = pkg-config is a software development tool that queries information about libraries from a local, file-based database for the purpose of building a codebase that depends on them. It allows for sharing a codebase in a cross-platform way by using host-specific library information that is stored outside of yet referenced by the codebase. This indirection allows the codebase to build on a host without encoding host-specific library information in the codebase.
The tool is invoked via its command line interface (CLI), and it reports library information via standard output. Some information, such as version information, is more useful to the programmer. Other information, such as command-line options (flags), is more useful to build tools such as a compiler and a linker.
The tool was originally designed for Linux, and is now also available for BSD, Windows, macOS, and Solaris. The first implementation was written in shell script.{{cite web |url=https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2000-June/msg00023.html |title=Re: the *-config scripts |author=Havoc Pennington |date=4 June 2000 |access-date=2020-01-22 |url=https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2000-July/msg00295.html |title=pkg-config |author=Havoc Pennington |date=23 July 2000 |access-date=2020-01-22
Database
To enable use of the tool, a referenced library must have a corresponding .pc file stored in the file system location designated for that purpose (the location varies by system). This file should be stored as part of the installation process as handled by RPM, deb, or other packaging system or by compiling from source code.
A .pc file contains various information such as the location of header files, library binaries and various descriptive information. It may also include a list of dependent libraries that programs using the library need to use.
Example
The following example .pc file defines information for libpng. It starts with defining variables that are used throughout the rest of the file. It includes descriptive information including name "libpng" and version "1.2.8". The Cflags entry defines an option that the C preprocessor uses to locate the library's header files in /usr/local/include/libpng12. The Libs entry defines options that define the location of library binaries, /usr/local/lib, and identify which library binary files to link.
::code[lang=pkgconfig] prefix=/usr/local exec_prefix=${prefix} libdir=${exec_prefix}/lib includedir=${exec_prefix}/include
Name: libpng Description: Loads and saves PNG files Version: 1.2.8 Libs: -L${libdir} -lpng12 -lz Cflags: -I${includedir}/libpng12 ::
The following is an example build command that uses this file to specify options to gcc. The output of command pkg-config --libs --cflags libpng is passed to gcc via its command line interface.
::code[lang=console] $ gcc -o test test.c $(pkg-config --libs --cflags libpng) ::
Alternative implementations
Notable variants of pkg-config:
- pkgconf – Re-write to eliminate GLib dependency; default (instead of pkg-config) on linux and BSD distributions from many vendors, including Alpine Linux, Arch Linux, CentOS 8+, Debian, Fedora, FreeBSD, Mageia 7+, Manjaro and NetBSD
- u-config – First-class Windows support
- PkgConfig – Written in Perl
- ruby-gnome/pkg-config – Written in Ruby
References
References
- Found on [https://repology.org/project/pkgconf/versions spread of pkgconf] but not [https://repology.org/project/pkg-config/versions spread of pkg-config] on repology
- https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2018-May/029252.html Replacing pkg-config with pkgconf] on [https://lists.archlinux.org/listinfo arch-dev-public@lists.archlinux.org]
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::