Beyond Linux® From Scratch (System V Edition) - Version r11.2-1152

Chapter 13. Programming

Vala-0.56.3

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.

[Note]

Note

Development versions of BLFS may not build or run some packages properly if dependencies have been updated since the most recent stable versions of the book.

Package Information

Vala Dependencies

Required

GLib-2.74.5

Recommended

Graphviz-7.1.0 (Required for valadoc)

Optional

dbus-1.14.4 (Required for the tests), libxslt-1.1.37 (Required for generating the documentation), help2man, jing, and weasyprint

User Notes: https://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/vala

Installation of Vala

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

--disable-valadoc: This option is required if Graphviz-7.1.0 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