---
short-description: Using meson projects as subprojects within other meson projects
...

# Subprojects

Some platforms do not provide a native packaging system. In these
cases it is common to bundle all third party libraries in your source
tree. This is usually frowned upon because it makes it hard to add
these kinds of projects into e.g. those Linux distributions that
forbid bundled libraries.

Meson tries to solve this problem by making it extremely easy to
provide both at the same time. The way this is done is that Meson
allows you to take any other Meson project and make it a part of your
build without (in the best case) any changes to its Meson setup. It
becomes a transparent part of the project. The basic idiom goes
something like this.

```meson
dep = dependency('foo', fallback : [subproject_name, variable_name])
```

As an example, suppose we have a simple project that provides a shared
library. It would be set up like this.

```meson
project('simple', 'c')
i = include_directories('include')
l = shared_library('simple', 'simple.c', include_directories : i, install : true)
simple_dep = declare_dependency(include_directories : i,
  link_with : l)
```

Then we could use that from a master project. First we generate a
subdirectory called `subprojects` in the root of the master
directory. Then we create a subdirectory called `simple` and put the
subproject in that directory. Now the subproject can be used like
this.

```meson
project('master', 'c')
dep = dependency('simple', fallback : ['simple', 'simple_dep'])
exe = executable('prog', 'prog.c',
                 dependencies : dep, install : true)
```

With this setup the system dependency is used when it is available,
otherwise we fall back on the bundled version. If you wish to always
use the embedded version, then you would declare it like this:

```meson
simple_sp = subproject('simple')
dep = simple_sp.get_variable('simple_dep')
```

All Meson features of the subproject, such as project options keep
working and can be set in the master project. There are a few
limitations, the most important being that global compiler arguments
must be set in the main project before calling subproject. Subprojects
must not set global arguments because there is no way to do that
reliably over multiple subprojects. To check whether you are running
as a subproject, use the `is_subproject` function.

It should be noted that this only works for subprojects that are built
with Meson. It can not be used with any other build system. The reason
is the simple fact that there is no possible way to do this reliably
with mixed build systems.

Subprojects can use other subprojects, but all subprojects must reside
in the top level `subprojects` directory. Recursive use of subprojects
is not allowed, though, so you can't have subproject `a` that uses
subproject `b` and have `b` also use `a`.

# Obtaining subprojects

Meson ships with a dependency system to automatically obtain
dependency subprojects. It is documented in the [Wrap dependency
system manual](Wrap-dependency-system-manual.md).

# Why must all subprojects be inside a single directory?

There are several reasons.

First of all, to maintain any sort of sanity, the system must prevent going
inside other subprojects with `subdir()` or variations thereof. Having the
subprojects in well defined places makes this easy. If subprojects could be
anywhere at all, it would be a lot harder.

Second of all it is extremely important that end users can easily see what
subprojects any project has. Because they are in one, and only one, place,
reviewing them becomes easy.

This is also a question of convention. Since all Meson projects have the same
layout w.r.t subprojects, switching between projects becomes easier. You don't
have to spend time on a new project traipsing through the source tree looking
for subprojects. They are always in the same place.

Finally if you can have subprojects anywhere, this increases the possibility of
having many different (possibly incompatible) versions of a dependency in your
source tree. Then changing some code (such as changing the order you traverse
directories) may cause a completely different version of the subproject to be
used by accident.