how to compile the freetype example

Sep 30, 2022

here is the freetype tutorial, which includes a link (hidden at the end(!?)) to an example C program with limited instructions for how to use the thing.

This makefile builds it, which it took me a bit to figure out:

INCLUDE_FLAGS=$(shell pkg-config --cflags --libs freetype2)

example: example1.c
    $(CC) $(INCLUDE_FLAGS) $< -o $@

the tutorial gives pkg-config --cflags freetype2, but it took me some googling to figure out --cflags --libs was what I wanted - this outputs three types of flags:
- -I tells the c compiler where to find the header files
- -L tells the c compiler where to find the dynamic library for freetype
- -l tells the c compiler what library to choose, maybe?
- The full output on this system is: -I/opt/homebrew/opt/freetype/include/freetype2 -L/opt/homebrew/opt/freetype/lib -lfreetype
- I had tried combinations of -I, and one of -L and -l before finding that you needed all three, for reasons that are not clear to me
$< means "all prerequisites of this task" which in this case is just example1.c
$@ means "the output file of this task" which in this case is example
I was able to run the example program and it prints something giant to my console that I don't understand

↑ up