VERSION file causes an error when building software that includes <version> and searches libpcap source directory for headers with a case-insensitive file system

[KrawMire]

I suppose this error only happens on MacOS. When I use libpcap in my project and link it and try to compile it using CMake, it fails with error:

lib/third_party/libpcap/version:1:1: error: expected unqualified-id

As I understood, MacOS compiler is trying to use this file as simple code file because the problem is caused by this:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX14.5.sdk/usr/include/c++/v1/iostream:38:.

Also, I can say that this could be fixed by renaming VERSION file to VERSION.txt and changing line 552 in CMakeLists.txt from this:

file(STRINGS ${pcap_SOURCE_DIR}/VERSION

to this

file(STRINGS ${pcap_SOURCE_DIR}/VERSION.txt

[guyharris]

It does not happen when building libpcap by itself with CMake, using the Ninja generator and the Ninja build tool. Perhaps there's something in the way you're including it. What generator are you using? Make, Ninja, or Xcode?

[KrawMire]

It does not happen when building libpcap by itself with CMake, using the Ninja generator and the Ninja build tool. Perhaps there's something in the way you're including it. What generator are you using? Make, Ninja, or Xcode?

Thanks for advice! I am using Ninja, so I will check my CMakeLists again

[KrawMire]

As I understood, it is a common bug for case-insensitive OS. Compiler tries to find version header file and takes VERSION. If you change VERSION file to VERSION.txt or something else, it will search this header file in another place.

For example, I found such discussions:
nmap/nmap#2747
https://groups.google.com/g/tesseract-ocr/c/MpCZe5wRYQE

So, the only workaround is to rename this file if you use case-insensitive OS, such as MacOS

[guyharris]

This is not a problem when trying to build libpcap.

It's a problem when trying to build other software that has #include <version> and that, for some reason, heppens to have the libpcap source directory in the include path.

Is there some reason why whatever software you're trying to build has the libpcap source directory in its include path?

[guyharris]

nmap/nmap#2747

Nmap, for some unknown reason, has its own version of libpcap in its source code, and searches in the libpcap source directory for headers. That should be cleaned up by the Nmap developers.

[guyharris]

https://groups.google.com/g/tesseract-ocr/c/MpCZe5wRYQE

For some unknown reason, the build process is looking for header files in the top-level source directory. They need to fix it not to do so.

[KrawMire]

Honestly, I am new to C++ and currently I and trying to learn it. I am really sorry for some misunderstanding. But I followed other developers' "best practices" and saw that they often include sources of external libraries into their own projects. How can you suggest to add a library to a project?

[guyharris]

In what fashion does your project use libpcap?

If it just compiles and links with libpcap, there's no reason to include the entire libpcap project source into your own project - you don't need libpcap source for your project, you just need to have libpcap's include file and libraries available.

[KrawMire]

I have created git submodule inside my repository to copy all of libpcap source files. Thank you for your advice, I will try it!

[gvanem]

@KrawMire

I suppose this error only happens on MacOS.

On Windows too. I reported the same issue back in 2021.

[KrawMire]

@gvanem oh, really, didn't notice your issue, sorry. As I see, there is no updates related to it, right?

[guyharris]

As that issue says:

The complication seems to be caused by providing the full libpcap source tree to a 3rd-party build process.

I suggested restructuring the source directory for libpcap to put all include files in a separate directory, so that those who, for whatever reason, insist on pointing their source tree at a libpcap source tree rather than installed headers, can do so without being at risk of picking up files that aren't public headers.

That's not going to happen in a 1.10.x release, however.

[infrastation]

In most use cases the best practice is to link, either dynamically or statically, with libpcap, but not to depend on libpcap source other than the public headers. If the build dependency is correctly satisfied this way, the VERSION and similar files are not present.

In less common use cases that genuinely demand a full copy of libpcap source (with or without modifications) the expectation is that the project developers know very well what they are doing and arrange the include paths in a way that does not trigger side effects on case-insensitive file systems.

This way, the current behaviour sometimes serves as an indicator that a project that uses libpcap may be not structured correctly, so keeping the tree source could the way it is now seems a sound alternative to restructuring.