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aggsol
Asked: 2019-11-08 06:54:45 +0800 CST

Vala compiler cannot find gee.h

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I followed the GNOME guid to setup Vala on Ubuntu. and try the first GEE sample.

$ valac --pkg gee-0.8 gee-list.vala 
gee-list.vala.c:8:10: fatal error: gee.h: No such file or directory
 #include <gee.h>
          ^~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
error: cc exited with status 256
Compilation failed: 1 error(s), 0 warning(s)

I have all dev packages are installed and the header is a /usr/include/gee-0.8/gee.h. Is there something else I have to setup?

I am using Ubuntu 18.04 and the Pantheon desktop.

  1. Update more info about my environment:
~$ echo | gcc -Wp,-v -x c++ - -fsyntax-only
ignoring duplicate directory "/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/c++/7"
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/local/include/x86_64-linux-gnu"
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/7/../../../../x86_64-linux-gnu/include"
#include "..." search starts here:
#include <...> search starts here:
 /usr/include/c++/7
 /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/c++/7
 /usr/include/c++/7/backward
 /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/7/include
 /usr/local/include
 /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/7/include-fixed
 /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu
 /usr/include
End of search list.

$ echo | gcc -Wp,-v -x c - -fsyntax-only
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/local/include/x86_64-linux-gnu"
ignoring nonexistent directory "/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/7/../../../../x86_64-linux-gnu/include"
#include "..." search starts here:
#include <...> search starts here:
 /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/7/include
 /usr/local/include
 /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/7/include-fixed
 /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu
 /usr/include
End of search list.
compiling vala

1 Answers

  1. Some general compiling tips about missing header files:

    Adding the appropriate directory to your include path is exactly what you're supposed to do in this case, only you're supposed to do it by pkg-config. Accessing the files directly using full pathnames is unsupported.

    Add something like this to your Makefile:

    CFLAGS += `pkg-config --cflags gtk+-3.0` 
 LIBS += `pkg-config --libs gtk+-3.0`

    This will automatically add the correct compiler and linker options for the current system.

    From mail archive there are some tips that might be useful:

    Re: [Vala] Package `Gee-0.8' not found

    Ralf Ganswindt Fri, 26 Jan 2018 22:08:52 -0800

    Thank you, that was the missing info. I figured out the proper name for the ubuntu repository to get the -dev package and voila the .gir file appeared where it should. I looked through the vala directories and found it under /usr/share/vala/vapi/, but valac still couldn't find it until I copied the file to /usr/share/vala-0.36/vapi/. I don't know if this is unique to Ubuntu, but I figure this might be useful to someone.

    Thanks again,

    Ralf

    Ralf Ganswindt [email protected]

    On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 12:03 PM, Al Thomas wrote:

    >

    On Thursday, 25 January 2018, 16:41:31 GMT, Ralf Ganswindt < [email protected]> wrote:

    I'm experimenting with Vala and so far I like how it works. However, I tried to compile a basic gee example from the sample programs and I get the following:

    $ valac --pkg Gee-0.8 list.vala error: Package `Gee-0.8' not found in specified Vala API directories or

    It should be --pkg gee-0.8 It is case sensitive!

    You also need the development files installed. For Ubuntu that would be something like apt install libgee-dev

    GIR files: You want to avoid GIR files to start with. They are GObject Introspection Repository (GIR) files that contain enough information about a C library's interface to generate bindings for various languages, including Vala. The Vala tool vapigen can then be used to generate a Vala Application Programming Interface (VAPI) file from the GIR. valac can do this automatically if a VAPI is not found.

    By using the capitalized version, --pkg Gee-0.8, valac tried to generate the VAPI for you by searching for the relevant GIR. It looks like that wasn't found either, probably because you don't have the development files installed. If you look at the files in the dev package you should see the difference in filenames.

    When starting out you want to focus on using VAPI files for interfacing with libraries.

    All the best,

    Al

    vala-list mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/vala-list

    Additionally I read somewhere that build-essentials should be installed as well.

    sudo apt install build-essentials
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