New features

backend_startup_project

backend_startup_project will no longer erase the last project in a VS solution if it is not the specified project.

Windows.compile_resources CustomTarget

Previously the Windows module only accepted CustomTargets with one output, it now accepts them with more than one output, and creates a windows resource target for each output. Additionally it now accepts indexes of CustomTargets

ct = custom_target(
  'multiple',
  output : ['resource', 'another resource'],
  ...
)

ct2 = custom_target(
  'slice',
  output : ['resource', 'not a resource'],
  ...
)

resources = windows.compile_resources(ct, ct2[0])

Add a man page backend to refman

The refman docs (function and object reference) can now be generated as a man page.

extract_objects() supports generated sources

Custom targets or generated files (returned by generator.process()) can now be passed to extract_objects().

Python 3.6 support will be dropped in the next release

The final Python 3.6 release was 3.6.15 in September. This release series is now End-of-Life (EOL). The only LTS distribution that still ships Python 3.5 as the default Python is Ubuntu 18.04, which has Python 3.8 available as well.

Python 3.7 has various features that we find useful such as future annotations, the importlib.resources module, and dataclasses.

As a result, we will begin requiring Python 3.7 or newer in Meson 0.62, which is the next release. Starting with Meson 0.61, we now print a NOTICE: when a meson command is run on Python 3.6 to inform users about this.

Warning if check kwarg of run_command is missing

The check kwarg of run_command currently defaults to false. Because we want to change that, running

run_command('cmd')

now results in:

WARNING: You should add the boolean check kwarg to the run_command call.
         It currently defaults to false,
         but it will default to true in future releases of meson.
         See also: https://github.com/mesonbuild/meson/issues/9300

meson rewrite can modify extra_files

The build script rewriter can now modify targets' extra_files lists, or create them if absent. It it used in the same way as with rewriting source lists:

meson rewrite target <target name/id> {add_extra_files/rm_extra_files} [list of extra files]

The rewriter's script mode also supports these actions:

{
  "type": "target",
  "target": "<target name>",
  "operation": "extra_files_add / extra_files_rm",
  "sources": ["list", "of", "extra", "files", "to", "add, remove"],
}

meson rewrite target <target> info outputs target's extra_files

Targets' extra_files lists are now included in the rewriter's target info dump as a list of file paths, in the same way sources are. This applies to both meson rewrite CLI and script mode.

Visual Studio 2022 backend

As Visual Studio 2022 is released recently, it's time to support the new version in Meson. This mainly includes the new "v143" platform tools.

The usage is similar to other backends. For example

meson setup builddir --backend=vs2022

will configure "builddir" for projects compatible with Visual Studio 2022.

Support for CMake <3.14 is now deprecated for CMake subprojects

In CMake 3.14, the File API was introduced and the old CMake server API was deprecated (and removed in CMake 3.20). Thus support for this API will also be removed from Meson in future releases.

This deprecation only affects CMake subprojects.

Added support for sccache

Meson now supports sccache just like it has supported CCache. If both sccache and CCache are available, the autodetection logic prefers sccache.

install_symlink function

It is now possible to request for symbolic links to be installed during installation. The install_symlink function takes a positional argument to the link name, and installs a symbolic link pointing to pointing_to target. The link will be created under install_dir directory and cannot contain path separators.

install_symlink('target', pointing_to: '../bin/target', install_dir: '/usr/sbin')