Beyond Linux® From Scratch (systemd Edition) - Version 12.1

Chapter 13. Programming

Vala-0.56.14

Introduction to Vala

Vala is a new programming language that aims to bring modern programming language features to GNOME developers without imposing any additional runtime requirements and without using a different ABI compared to applications and libraries written in C.

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS 12.1 platform.

Package Information

Vala Dependencies

Required

GLib-2.78.4

Recommended

Graphviz-10.0.1 (Required for valadoc)

Optional

dbus-1.14.10 (Required for the tests), gobject-introspection-1.78.1 (Required for the tests), libxslt-1.1.39 (Required for generating the documentation), help2man, jing, and weasyprint

Installation of Vala

First, fix a build failure that occurs with graphviz-10.x: 

sed -i '/gvc.h/a#define TRUE 1' libvaladoc/gvc-compat.c

Install Vala by running the following commands: 

./configure --prefix=/usr &&
make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Now, as the root user: 

make install

Command Explanations

bootstrap: This make target forces the building system to build the package twice and use the vala executable produced in the first build to regenerate the .c files from the .vala files if needed. If a vala executable is not installed yet and you've modified any .vala files in the source tree, run make bootstrap instead of make.

--disable-valadoc: This option is required if Graphviz-10.0.1 is not installed.

Contents

Installed Programs: vala, vala-0.56, valac, valadoc, vala-gen-introspect, and vapigen (symlinks); valac-0.56, valadoc-0.56, vala-gen-introspect-0.56, and vapigen-0.56
Installed Library: libvala-0.56.so and libvaladoc-0.56.so
Installed Directories: /usr/include/vala-0.56, /usr/include/valadoc-0.56, /usr/lib/vala-0.56, /usr/lib/valadoc-0.56, /usr/share/vala, /usr/share/vala-0.56, /usr/share/valadoc-0.56, and /usr/share/devhelp/books/vala-0.56

Short Descriptions

valac

is a compiler that translates Vala source code into C source and header files

valadoc

is a documentation generator for generating API documentation from Vala source code based on libvala

vala-gen-introspect

generates a GI file for GObject and GLib based packages

vapigen

is an utility which generates Vala API (VAPI) files from GI files

libvala-0.56.so

contains the Vala API functions