# Compiling GTK Applications on UNIX {#gtk-compiling}

To compile a GTK application, you need to tell the compiler where to
find the GTK header files and libraries. This is done with the
`pkg-config` utility.

The following interactive shell session demonstrates how `pkg-config`
is used (the actual output on your system may be different):

```
$ pkg-config --cflags gtk4
 -pthread -I/usr/include/gtk-4.0 -I/usr/lib64/gtk-4.0/include -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib64/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/pixman-1 -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/include/libpng12
$ pkg-config --libs gtk4
 -pthread -lgtk-4 -lgdk-4 -lgio-2.0 -lpangoft2-1.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lpangocairo-1.0 -lcairo -lpango-1.0 -lfreetype -lfontconfig -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0 -lgthread-2.0 -lrt -lglib-2.0
```
The simplest way to compile a program is to use the "backticks"
feature of the shell. If you enclose a command in backticks
(*not single quotes*), then its output will be substituted into the
command line before execution. So to compile a GTK Hello, World, you
would type the following:
```
$ cc `pkg-config --cflags gtk4` hello.c -o hello `pkg-config --libs gtk4`
```
Deprecated GTK functions are annotated to make the compiler
emit warnings when they are used (e.g. with gcc, you need to use
the -Wdeprecated-declarations option). If these warnings are
problematic, they can be turned off by defining the preprocessor
symbol %GDK_DISABLE_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS by using the commandline
option `-DGDK_DISABLE_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS`.

GTK deprecation annotations are versioned; by defining the
macros %GDK_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED and %GDK_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED,
you can specify the range of GTK versions whose API you want
to use. APIs that were deprecated before or introduced after
this range will trigger compiler warnings.

Here is how you would compile hello.c if you want to allow it
to use symbols that were not deprecated in 4.2:
```
$ cc `pkg-config --cflags gtk4` -DGDK_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED=GDK_VERSION_4_2 hello.c -o hello `pkg-config --libs gtk4`
```

And here is how you would compile hello.c if you don't want
it to use any symbols that were introduced after 4.2:
```
$ cc `pkg-config --cflags gtk4` -DGDK_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED=GDK_VERSION_4_2 hello.c -o hello `pkg-config --libs gtk4`
```
The older deprecation mechanism of hiding deprecated interfaces
entirely from the compiler by using the preprocessor symbol
GTK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED is still used for deprecated macros,
enumeration values, etc. To detect uses of these in your code,
use the commandline option `-DGTK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED`.
There are similar symbols GDK_DISABLE_DEPRECATED,
GDK_PIXBUF_DISABLE_DEPRECATED and G_DISABLE_DEPRECATED for GDK,
GdkPixbuf and GLib.
