Built-in options
Meson provides two kinds of options: build options provided by the build files and built-in options that are either universal options, base options, compiler options.
Universal options
A list of these options can be found by running meson --help. All
these can be set by passing to meson (aka meson setup) in any of
these ways: --option=value, --option value, -Doption=value, or
by setting them inside default_options of project() in your meson.build.
For legacy reasons --warnlevel is the cli argument for the warning_level option.
They can also be edited after setup using meson configure.
Installation options are all relative to the prefix, except:
- When the prefix is
/usr:sysconfdirdefaults to/etc,localstatedirdefaults to/var, andsharedstatedirdefaults to/var/lib - When the prefix is
/usr/local:localstatedirdefaults to/var/local, andsharedstatedirdefaults to/var/local/lib
| Option | Default value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| prefix | see below | Installation prefix |
| libdir | see below | Library directory |
| libexecdir | libexec | Library executable directory |
| bindir | bin | Executable directory |
| sbindir | sbin | System executable directory |
| includedir | include | Header file directory |
| datadir | share | Data file directory |
| mandir | share/man | Manual page directory |
| infodir | share/info | Info page directory |
| localedir | share/locale | Locale data directory |
| sysconfdir | etc | Sysconf data directory |
| localstatedir | var | Localstate data directory |
| sharedstatedir | com | Architecture-independent data directory |
| werror | false | Treat warnings as errors |
| warning_level {0, 1, 2, 3} | 1 | Set the warning level. From 0 = none to 3 = highest |
| layout {mirror,flat} | mirror | Build directory layout. |
| default_library {shared, static, both} | shared | Default library type. |
| backend {ninja, vs, vs2010, vs2015, vs2017, xcode} |
Backend to use (default: ninja). | |
| stdsplit | Split stdout and stderr in test logs. | |
| errorlogs | Whether to print the logs from failing tests. | |
| cross-file CROSS_FILE | File describing cross compilation environment. | |
| wrap-mode {default, nofallback, nodownload, forcefallback} | Special wrap mode to use |
prefix defaults to C:/ on Windows, and /usr/local/ otherwise. You should always
override this value.
libdir is automatically detected based on your platform, but the
implementation is currently buggy
on Linux platforms.
There are various other options to set, for instance the backend to use and
the path to the cross-file while cross compiling, which won't be repeated here.
Please see the output of meson --help.
Base options
These are set in the same way as universal options, but cannot be shown in the
output of meson --help because they depend on both the current platform and
the compiler that will be selected. The only way to see them is to setup
a builddir and then run meson configure on it with no options.
The following options are available. Note that they may not be available on all platforms or with all compilers:
| Option | Default value | Possible values | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| b_asneeded | true | true, false | Use -Wl,--as-needed when linking |
| b_bitcode | false | true, false | Embed Apple bitcode, see below |
| b_colorout | always | auto, always, never | Use colored output |
| b_coverage | false | true, false | Enable coverage tracking |
| b_vscrt | from_buildtype | none, md, mdd, mt, mtd, from_buildtype | VS runtime library to use (since 0.48.0) |
| b_lundef | true | true, false | Don't allow undefined symbols when linking |
| b_lto | false | true, false | Use link time optimization |
| b_ndebug | false | true, false, if-release | Disable asserts |
| b_pch | true | true, false | Use precompiled headers |
| b_pgo | off | off, generate, use | Use profile guided optimization |
| b_sanitize | none | see below | Code sanitizer to use |
| b_staticpic | true | true, false | Build static libraries as position independent |
| b_pie | false | true, false | Build position-independent executables (since 0.49.0) |
The value of b_sanitize can be one of: none, address, thread,
undefined, memory, address,undefined.
Notes about Apple Bitcode support
b_bitcode will pass -fembed-bitcode while compiling and will pass
-Wl,-bitcode_bundle while linking. These options are incompatible with
b_asneeded, so that option will be silently disabled.
Shared modules will not have bitcode
embedded because -Wl,-bitcode_bundle is incompatible with both -bundle and
-Wl,-undefined,dynamic_lookup which are necessary for shared modules to work.
Compiler options
Same caveats as base options above.
The following options are available. Note that both the options themselves and the possible values they can take will depend on the target platform or compiler being used:
| Option | Default value | Possible values | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| c_args | free-form comma-separated list | C compile arguments to use | |
| c_link_args | free-form comma-separated list | C link arguments to use | |
| c_std | none | none, c89, c99, c11, gnu89, gnu99, gnu11 | C language standard to use |
| c_winlibs | see below | free-form comma-separated list | Standard Windows libs to link against |
| cpp_args | free-form comma-separated list | C++ compile arguments to use | |
| cpp_link_args | free-form comma-separated list | C++ link arguments to use | |
| cpp_std | none | none, c++98, c++03, c++11, c++14, c++17, c++1z, gnu++03, gnu++11, gnu++14, gnu++17, gnu++1z |
C++ language standard to use |
| cpp_debugstl | false | true, false | C++ STL debug mode |
| cpp_eh | sc | none, a, s, sc | C++ exception handling type |
| cpp_winlibs | see below | free-form comma-separated list | Standard Windows libs to link against |
The default values of c_winlibs and cpp_winlibs are in compiler-specific
argument forms, but the libraries are: kernel32, user32, gdi32, winspool,
shell32, ole32, oleaut32, uuid, comdlg32, advapi32.
c_args, cpp_args, c_link_args, and cpp_link_args only affect native builds, when cross compiling they will not be applied to binaries or libraries targeting the host system, only those being run on the build system.
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