This is a combined rant and tutorial. The tutorial is available further down, under its own subheading. :)

It started Saturday, when I decided to jump in and get my hands dirty with the FUSE API. I started looking for the API documentation, but couldn’t find any which were relevant for my needs. I found some describing the internal kernel API, but nothing describing how to USE that API.

I found some example code with instructions describing how to compile it. These instructions state “gcc -Wall hello.c pkg-config fuse –cflags –libs -o hello”. I got errors about directories not found and flags not recognized. Oh well, not too surprising. I was maybe a little bit optimistic in thinking it was as easy as replacing gcc with clang!

So I went on to google for cmd switch replacements, etc, to no avail. After banging my head on this for over a day, I figured it’s better to leave this problem for another day, and just go with gcc for now. I installed gcc, and… same problem!

I then tweeted, hoping someone would have some suggestions for me. Almost immediately, @badboy_ replied, saying it was displayed wrong, and some of it should be wrapped in ticks. Okay, so I tried gcc48 -Wall hello.c `pkg-config fuse --cflags --libs` -o hello. Now it was complaining about pkg-config not being a valid command. Okay, one step further. In a combination of frustration and joy I immediately ask where to find “pkg-config” for FreeBSD. @FreeBSDHelp mentioned pkgconf. I tried the substitution trick on this, and the command line went gcc48 -Wall hello.c `pkgconf fuse --cflags --libs` -o hello. Okay one step further. It’s now complaining about a missing package for fuse. Digging around the ports tree, I find sysutils/fusefs-libs. Install it, try again.. and voila! It compiles, and works.

I once again try the clang-for-gcc substitution trick, and it works as a charm now. I immediately uninstalled gcc. ;)

How to Compile Your Own FUSE File System on FreeBSD?

1. Install the package sysutils/fusefs-libs
2. Have some code which uses FUSE (let’s assume hello.c from http://fuse.sourceforge.net/doxygen/hello_8c.html)
3. Execute: clang -Wall hello.c `pkg-config fuse --cflags --libs` -o hello

That’s how easy it is, really. Now if only someone could have written that somewhere it could be found. :)

Changelog:
2015-10-28: Replaced ‘pkgconf’ with ‘pkg-config’ according to @myfreeweb‘s tweet.
2015-10-28: Added freshports.org link to package name.
2015-10-28: Cleaned up some links, adjusted text to reflect the post wasn’t published the day I started writing it.
2015-10-28: Added profile links for twitter handles.
2015-10-28: Made the link to @badboy_’s tweet more visible and added link to @FreeBSDHelp’s tweet.