Beyond Linux® From Scratch (systemd Edition) - Version 11.2

Chapter 13. Programming

Vala-0.56.2

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-11.2 platform.

Package Information

Vala Dependencies

Required

GLib-2.72.3

Recommended

Graphviz-5.0.1 (Required for valadoc)

Optional

dbus-1.14.0 (Required for the tests), libxslt-1.1.36 (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-5.0.1 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