PDF Generating Library Integration Example libharu

This app was created for testing external library integration into a C program configured and set up on Windows via WSL.

Compiling and Running

For compiling you need gcc installed on your machine inside of WSL.

wsl # For entering WSL terminal

gcc main.c -o pdf-gen.exe -lhpdf

Additional Information

Header files we use in the project

Those header files e.g. stdio.f and hpdf.h are imported from dirctories where they are located (on Linux) and those directories are

• /usr/local/include - for packacges, libraries (and headers coming with them) installed by us (e.g. hpdf.h)
• /usr/include - for built in packages (e.g. C native packages) that installed with C (while installed gcc and other tools) for example stdio.h library

Libraries we include during building

The libraries anyway need to be included even during build time e.g. -lhpdf. They are also taken from certain directories (on Linux), and those directories are

• /usr/lib - for native libraries that come with C (while installing gcc)
• /usr/local/lib - for packages and libraries we installed hpdf (libharu) which we link like -lhpdf, and here is how it works when we type -lhpdf.

✅ -lhpdf
-l<name> (lowercase L) means:

"Link against a library named lib<name>.a (lib<name>.so) or lib<name>.dylib"

So -lhpdf will link against:

libhpdf.a

or

libhpdf.dylib

(depending on what’s available and how your system is configured)

📌 Without this, you'd get "undefined symbol" errors for every function you used from libharu.

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Recorded set up process

https://youtu.be/EdwMgVJifJU