Compiling CTK+ Applications on UNIX

To compile a CTK+ application, you need to tell the compiler where to find the CTK+ header files and libraries. This is done with the pkg-config utility.

The following interactive shell session demonstrates how pkg-config is used (the actual output on your system may be different):

$ pkg-config --cflags ctk+-3.0
 -pthread -I/usr/include/ctk-3.0 -I/usr/lib64/ctk-3.0/include -I/usr/include/atk-1.0 -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib64/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/pixman-1 -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/include/libpng12
$ pkg-config --libs ctk+-3.0
 -pthread -lctk-3 -lcdk-3 -latk-1.0 -lgio-2.0 -lpangoft2-1.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lpangocairo-1.0 -lcairo -lpango-1.0 -lfreetype -lfontconfig -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lrt -lglib-2.0

The simplest way to compile a program is to use the "backticks" feature of the shell. If you enclose a command in backticks (not single quotes), then its output will be substituted into the command line before execution. So to compile a CTK+ Hello, World, you would type the following:

$ cc `pkg-config --cflags ctk+-3.0` hello.c -o hello `pkg-config --libs ctk+-3.0`

Deprecated CTK+ functions are annotated to make the compiler emit warnings when they are used (e.g. with gcc, you need to use the -Wdeprecated-declarations option). If these warnings are problematic, they can be turned off by defining the preprocessor symbol CDK_DISABLE_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS by using the commandline option -DCDK_DISABLE_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS

CTK+ deprecation annotations are versioned; by defining the macros CDK_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED and CDK_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED, you can specify the range of CTK+ versions whose API you want to use. APIs that were deprecated before or introduced after this range will trigger compiler warnings.

Here is how you would compile hello.c if you want to allow it to use symbols that were not deprecated in 3.2:

$ cc `pkg-config --cflags ctk+-3.0` -DCDK_VERSION_MIN_REQIRED=CDK_VERSION_3_2 hello.c -o hello `pkg-config --libs ctk+-3.0`

And here is how you would compile hello.c if you don't want it to use any symbols that were introduced after 3.4:

$ cc `pkg-config --cflags ctk+-3.0` -DCDK_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED=CDK_VERSION_3_4 hello.c -o hello `pkg-config --libs ctk+-3.0`

The older deprecation mechanism of hiding deprecated interfaces entirely from the compiler by using the preprocessor symbol CTK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED is still used for deprecated macros, enumeration values, etc. To detect uses of these in your code, use the commandline option -DCTK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED. There are similar symbols CDK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED, GDK_PIXBUF_DISABLE_DEPRECATED and G_DISABLE_DEPRECATED for CDK, GdkPixbuf and GLib.

Similarly, if you want to make sure that your program doesn't use any functions which may be problematic in a multidevice setting, you can define the preprocessor symbol CDK_MULTIDEVICE_SAFE by using the command line option -DCTK_MULTIDEVICE_SAFE=1.