[Coin-discuss] How to link my program with Osi

[Lou Hafer]

Joe,

	You make some good points.  Taking a long look at pkg-config has been on
my `to-do' list for a while; it's a matter of finding time.  Contributions
welcomed, if something like this fits into your development plans.

	You might want to have a look at the BuildTools wiki
(https://projects.coin-or.org/BuildTools/wiki) and in particular the section for
project managers (https://projects.coin-or.org/BuildTools/wiki/pm-main).  This
describes how to use the set of configuration macros defined in
BuildTools/coin.m4.  They may not be directly helpful to you (as you say, it's
not a good idea to assume too much about the Coin distribution directory
structure).  But you may be able to extract useful bits.

	Much of the complexity in the COIN configuration scripts comes from
finding components prior to running `make install'.  For this we need to assume
the standard COIN distribution directory structure.  After installation, all
includes, libraries, etc., are collected in standard locations.  But the bias in
BuildTools is clearly towards those who are developing COIN itself, working in a
pre-installation environment.

	For better or worse, COIN is not one big library, and is unlikely to go
in that direction.  It's a collection of pieces from which you select the pieces
you want.  For projects like Osi and OS, we do not automatically assume that you
want to use a solver just because it's present on your system.  From that
perspective, a coin-config script that could be interrogated for information on
the set of COIN components needed by a larger work would be a very useful
addition.

	Hmmm ... I seem to have convinced myself this should become a higher 
priority  :-)

							Lou