pkg-config

pkg-config is a software development tool that queries information about libraries from a local, file-based database for the purpose of building a codebase that depends on them. It allows for sharing a codebase in a cross-platform way by using host-specific library information that is stored outside of yet referenced by the codebase. This indirection allows the codebase to build on a host without encoding host-specific library information in the codebase.