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MESON(1) User Commands MESON(1)

NAME

meson - a high productivity build system

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:

print version number
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:

show this help message and exit

directory to cd into before running

Allow even when repository contains uncommitted changes.

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

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

Do not build and test generated packages.

The install command

meson install installs the project.

meson install [ options ]

options:

show this help message and exit

directory to cd into before running

Do not rebuild before installing.

Only overwrite files that are older than the copied file.

Do not print every file that was installed.

Sets or overrides DESTDIR environment. (Since 0.57.0)

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

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

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

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:

print all top level targets (executables, libraries, etc)
print the source files of the given target
print all files that make up the build system (meson.build, meson.options, meson_options.txt etc)
print all unit tests
print command line help

The init command

meson init creates a new project

meson init [ options ] [ sourcefile... ]

positional arguments:

source files. default: all recognized files in current directory

options:

show this help message and exit

directory to cd into before running

project name. default: name of current directory

executable name. default: project name

dependencies, comma-separated

project language. default: autodetected based on source files

build after generation

directory for build

force overwrite of existing files and directories.

project type. default: executable based project

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:

run tests as many times as specified
run tests under gdb
list all available tests
invoke all tests via the given wrapper (e.g. valgrind)
Change into the given directory before running tests (must be root of build directory).
run tests in this suite
do not run tests in this suite
do not split stderr and stdout in test logs
run benchmarks instead of tests
base of file name to use for writing test logs
how many parallel processes to use to run tests
do not redirect stdout and stderr
a multiplier to use for test timeout values (usually something like 100 for Valgrind)
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 all available projects
search projects by name
install a project with the given name
update the specified project to latest available version
show available versions of the specified project
show installed and available versions of currently used subprojects

The subprojects command

meson subprojects is used to manage subprojects.

meson subprojects [ options ] [ command ]

options:

show this help message and exit

commands:

Update all subprojects from wrap files

Checkout a branch (git only)

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.

Execute a command in each subproject directory.

Remove all wrap-based subproject artifacts

Manage the packagefiles overlay

The rewrite command

meson rewrite modifies the project definition.

meson rewrite [ options ] [ command ]

options:

show this help message and exit

Path to source directory.

Enable verbose output

Skip errors instead of aborting

commands:

Modify a target

Modify keyword arguments

Modify the project default options

Execute a JSON array of commands

The compile command

meson compile builds the project.

meson compile [ options ] [ TARGET... ]

positional arguments:

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

options:

show this help message and exit

Clean the build directory.

directory to cd into before running

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

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

Show more verbose output.

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

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

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 to run in developer environment (default: interactive shell)

options:

show this help message and exit

Path to build directory

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

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

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:

show this help message and exit

The dpkg architecture to generate.

A particular gcc version suffix if necessary.

The output file.

Generate a cross compilation file.

Generate a native compilation file.

Define system for cross compilation.

Define subsystem for cross compilation.

Define kernel for cross compilation.

Define cpu for cross compilation.

Define cpu family for cross compilation.

Define endianness for cross compilation.

The format command

meson format formats a meson source file.

meson format [ options ] [ sources... ]

positional arguments:

meson source files

options:

show this help message and exit

exit with 1 if files would be modified by meson format

format files in-place

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

read configuration from meson.format

try to read configuration from .editorconfig

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/

October 2024 meson 1.6.0