Adding flags

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Adding compiler flags

Often you need to specify extra compiler flags. Meson provides two different ways to achieve this: global flags and per-target flags.

Global flags

Global compiler flags are set with the following command.

add_global_arguments('-std=c99', language : 'c')

This sets the flag that controls the C language standard used.

Global arguments have certain limitations. They all have to be defined before any build targets are specified. This ensures that the global flags are the same for every single source file built in the entire project. For this reason you should set only the most essential flags with this setting.

You should not set debug or optimization flags with this function. Instead they should be specified with the build type feature.

Per target flags

Per target flags are just as simple to define.

executable('prog', 'prog.cc', cpp_args : '-DCPPTHING')

Here we create a C++ executable with an extra preprocessor definition.

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