MesonToolchain

Warning

This is an experimental feature subject to breaking changes in future releases.

The MesonToolchain can be used in the generate() method:

from conans import ConanFile
from conan.tools.meson import MesonToolchain

class App(ConanFile):
    settings = "os", "arch", "compiler", "build_type"
    requires = "hello/0.1"
    options = {"shared": [True, False]}
    default_options = {"shared": False}

    def generate(self):
        tc = MesonToolchain(self)
        tc.generate()

The MesonToolchain will generate the following file during conan install command (or before calling the build() method when the package is being built in the cache): conan_meson_native.ini

conan_meson_native.ini will contain the definitions of all the Meson properties related to the Conan options and settings for the current package, platform, etc. This includes but is not limited to the following:

Detection of default_library from Conan settings
- Based on existance/value of a option named shared
Detection of buildtype from Conan settings
Definition of the C++ standard as necessary
The Visual Studio runtime (b_vscrt), obtained from Conan input settings

Generators

The MesonToolchain only works with the pkg_config generator. Please, do not use other generators, as they can have overlapping definitions that can conflict.

Using the toolchain in developer flow

One of the advantages of using Conan toolchains is that they can help to achieve the exact same build with local development flows, than when the package is created in the cache.

With the MesonToolchain it is possible to do:

# Lets start in the folder containing the conanfile.py
$ mkdir build && cd build
# Install both debug and release deps and create the toolchain
$ conan install ..
# the build type Release is encoded in the toolchain already.
# This conan_meson_native.iniis specific for release
$ meson setup --native-file conan_meson_native.ini build .
$ meson compile -C build