1MESON(1)                         User Commands                        MESON(1)
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NAME

6       meson - a high productivity build system
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DESCRIPTION

9       Meson  is  a build system designed to optimize programmer productivity.
10       It aims to do this by providing simple, out-of-the-box support for mod‐
11       ern  software development tools and practices, such as unit tests, cov‐
12       erage reports, Valgrind, Ccache and the like.
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14       The main Meson executable provides many subcommands to access  all  the
15       functionality.
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17

The setup command

19       Using  Meson is simple and follows the common two-phase process of most
20       build systems. First you run Meson to configure your build:
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22       meson setup [ options ] [ build directory ] [ source directory ]
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24       Note that the build directory must be different from the source  direc‐
25       tory.  Meson  does not support building inside the source directory and
26       attempting to do that leads to an error.
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28       After a successful configuration step you can build the source by  run‐
29       ning the actual build command in the build directory. The default back‐
30       end of Meson is Ninja, which can be invoked like this.
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32       ninja [ target ]
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34       You only need to run the Meson command once: when you  first  configure
35       your  build  dir. After that you just run the build command. Meson will
36       autodetect changes in your source tree and regenerate all files  needed
37       to build the project.
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39       The  setup  command  is  the default operation. If no actual command is
40       specified, Meson will assume you meant to do a setup. That  means  that
41       you can set up a build directory without the setup command like this:
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43       meson [ options ] [ build directory ] [ source directory ]
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45
46   options:
47       --version
48              print version number
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50       --help print command line help
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52

The configure command

54       meson  configure  provides  a way to configure a Meson project from the
55       command line.  Its usage is simple:
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57       meson configure [ build directory ] [ options to set ]
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59       If build directory is omitted, the current directory is used instead.
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61       If no parameters are set, meson configure will print the value  of  all
62       build options to the console.
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64       To set values, use the -D command line argument like this.
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66       meson configure -Dopt1=value1 -Dopt2=value2
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68

The introspect command

70       Meson  introspect is a command designed to make it simple to  integrate
71       with other tools, such as IDEs. The output of this command is in JSON.
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73       meson introspect [ build directory ] [ option ]
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75       If build directory is omitted, the current directory is used instead.
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77
78   options:
79       --targets
80              print all top level targets (executables, libraries, etc)
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82       --target-files
83              print the source files of the given target
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85       --buildsystem-files
86              print all files that make up the build system (meson.build,  me‐
87              son.options, meson_options.txt etc)
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89       --tests
90              print all unit tests
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92       --help print command line help
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94

The test command

96       meson  test  is a helper tool for running test suites of projects using
97       Meson.  The default way of running tests is to invoke the default build
98       command:
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100       ninja [ test ]
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102       meson test provides a richer set of tools for invoking tests.
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104       meson  test  automatically  rebuilds the necessary targets to run tests
105       when used with the Ninja backend.  Upon build failure, meson test  will
106       return  an  exit code of 125.  This return code tells git bisect run to
107       skip the current commit.  Thus bisecting using git can be  done  conve‐
108       niently like this.
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110       git bisect run meson test -C build_dir
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112
113   options:
114       --repeat
115              run tests as many times as specified
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117       --gdb  run tests under gdb
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119       --list list all available tests
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121       --wrapper
122              invoke all tests via the given wrapper (e.g. valgrind)
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124       -C     Change  into  the  given directory before running tests (must be
125              root of build directory).
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127       --suite
128              run tests in this suite
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130       --no-suite
131              do not run tests in this suite
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133       --no-stdsplit
134              do not split stderr and stdout in test logs
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136       --benchmark
137              run benchmarks instead of tests
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139       --logbase
140              base of file name to use for writing test logs
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142       --num-processes
143              how many parallel processes to use to run tests
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145       --verbose
146              do not redirect stdout and stderr
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148       -t     a multiplier to use for test timeout values  (usually  something
149              like 100 for Valgrind)
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151       --setup
152              use the specified test setup
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154

The wrap command

156       Wraptool  is  a  helper utility to manage source dependencies using the
157       online wrapdb service.
158
159       meson wrap < command > [ options ]
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161       You should run this command in the top level source directory  of  your
162       project.
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164
165   Commands:
166       list   list all available projects
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168       search search projects by name
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170       install
171              install a project with the given name
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173       update update the specified project to latest available version
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175       info   show available versions of the specified project
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177       status show  installed and available versions of currently used subpro‐
178              jects
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EXIT STATUS

182       0      Successful.
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184       1      Usage error, or an error parsing or executing meson.build.
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186       2      Internal error.
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188       125    meson test could not rebuild the required targets.
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191
192       SEE ALSO
193
194              http://mesonbuild.com/
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196              https://wrapdb.mesonbuild.com/
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200meson 1.2.3                      October 2023                         MESON(1)