# How to create pkgconfig file

**URL:** https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-create-pkgconfig-file/10337
**Category:** Code
**Created:** [March 9, 2024, 4:27pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-create-pkgconfig-file/10337 "2024-03-09T16:27:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 19

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![ClausKlein](https://discourse.cmake.org/user_avatar/discourse.cmake.org/clausklein/32/352_2.png) [@ClausKlein](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/ClausKlein)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2024, 6:17pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-create-pkgconfig-file/10337/19 "2024-03-10T18:17:34Z")

</div>

I dit understand you the whole time, but you expect that `CMake` is doing the work for you!

### It is an `usage error`, not a` CMake error`

```diff
bash-5.2$ git diff *.in
diff --git a/lib/mylibrary.pc.in b/lib/mylibrary.pc.in
index d073438..e7fa2e2 100644
--- a/lib/mylibrary.pc.in
+++ b/lib/mylibrary.pc.in
@@ -1,8 +1,11 @@
-libdir=@CMAKE_INSTALL_FULL_LIBDIR@
-includedir=@CMAKE_INSTALL_FULL_INCLUDEDIR@
+# libdir=@CMAKE_INSTALL_FULL_LIBDIR@
+# includedir=@CMAKE_INSTALL_FULL_INCLUDEDIR@
+libdir=${pcfiledir}/../@CMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR@
+includedir=${pcfiledir}/../../@CMAKE_INSTALL_INCLUDEDIR@
 
 Name: @PROJECT_NAME@
 Description: PNG reader
-Version: @VERSION@
-Libs: -L${libdir} -lmylibrary @MYLIBRARY_LINK_LIBRARIES@
-Cflags: -I${includedir} @MYLIBRARY_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES@
+Version: @PROJECT_VERSION@
+Requires: libpng >= 1.6
+Libs: -L${libdir} -lmylibrary -lpng16 # XXX @MYLIBRARY_LINK_LIBRARIES@
+Cflags: -I${includedir} -I@PNG_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES@ # -I/usr/local/opt/libpng/include/libpng16 # XXX @MYLIBRARY_INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES@

```

This works fine 🙂

see too [https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show\_bug.cgi?id=62018](https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62018)  
and [How to generate .pc (pkg-config) file supporting --prefix of the cmake --install? - #6 by craig.scott](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/how-to-generate-pc-pkg-config-file-supporting-prefix-of-the-cmake-install/4109/6)

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