How to recover missing file ?

Lost User

I have a cloned "wrapper' header file containing other headers. The compiler fails to find one of them. But file manager has no problem opening it. I checked the contents of the file and it looks similar to other headers. \

#ifndef DBUS_H
#define DBUS_H

#define DBUS_INSIDE_DBUS_H 1

#include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include compiler l,fails to "find" this file ONLY
#include #include #include #undef DBUS_INSIDE_DBUS_H

here is FULL compiler error

/usr/include/dbus-1.0/dbus/dbus.h:42: error: 'dbus/dbus-syntax.h' file not found
In file included from BT_CONNECT.cpp:14:
In file included from ../../A_BT_LIBRARY/SimpleBluetooth/SimpleBLE-main/simplebluez/include/simplebluez/Adapter.h:2:
In file included from ./../../A_BT_LIBRARY/SimpleBluetooth/SimpleBLE-main/simpledbus/include/simpledbus/advanced/Proxy.h:3:
In file included from ../../A_BT_LIBRARY/SimpleBluetooth/SimpleBLE-main/simpledbus/include/simpledbus/advanced/Interface.h:3:
In file included from ../../A_BT_LIBRARY/SimpleBluetooth/SimpleBLE-main/simpledbus/include/simpledbus/base/Connection.h:18:
/usr/include/dbus-1.0/dbus/dbus.h:42:10: fatal error: 'dbus/dbus-syntax.h' file not found
#include
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am asking for suggestion(s) how to convince the compiler that the file does exists. Or what could be wrong with the header source, and way to temporary bypass it so ,I can compile the code. PS If it helps I could post the header source here...

Lost User

Why should "we" convince the compiler of somthing only "you" can see (or not see)? The existence of said file is "hearsay".

"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I

Maximilien

Have you updated the "additional include directories" in the project settings ?

CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair

Lost User

Where exactly did you find that file?

Lost User

That is not (very) logical. There is series of "includes" from same resource and they are "found". I can open the file, so what is stopping the compiler to "find" it?

jschell

Salvatore Terress wrote:

#include <dbus/dbus-signature.h> compiler l,fails to "find" this file ONLY #include <dbus/dbus-syntax.h>

You can verify this by deleting the first file - then you should get the error for that first file. If you delete it and the error does NOT occur then you are looking at the wrong directory. But if those two files are in the same directory then the problem is a permission problem. Probably with the file. But there are other possible variations such as that the file is actually a link and the link location (hierarchy) has a permission problem.

k5054

!!! pkg-config is your friend !!! Here's a very simple program that #includes <dbus/dbus.h>

#include #include int main()
{
std::cout << "Hello World\n";
}

Clearly, this does nothing but print "Hello World", but does ask the compiler to #include <dbus/dbus.h> If we try to compile this naively, the compiler complains that it can't find the requested headers

k5054@localhost:~/tmp $ g++ hello.cpp
hello.cpp:2:10: fatal error: dbus/dbus.h: No such file or directory
2 | #include
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.

pkg-config --cflags dbus-1 returns the magic needed to find the headers:

k5054@localhost:~/tmp $ pkg-config --cflags dbus-1
-I/usr/include/dbus-1.0 -I/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dbus-1.0/include

I've been over this before in answer to your question in QA I think, so I'm not going to repeat it here. We can use some shell "magic" to tell the compiler to use pkg-config to find the headers:

k5054@localhost:~/tmp$ g++ $(pkg-config --cflags dbus-1) hello.cpp
k5054@localhost:~/tmp$ ./a.out
Hello World
k5054@localhost:~/tmp$

This clearly finds the requested headers and compiles the program successfully. I'd recommend that you try this from the command line exactly as shown here. If you get a successful compile, you need to dig into your IDE and find out how to configure it correctly. If this doesn't work for you, then you've probably :elephant:ed up your linux installation, and my best recommendation would be to back anything you want to keep, purge your drives, then reinstall. Before recovering your backed up files, make sure that the above simple program will compile. If not, you need to figure out why. In over 30 years of working with Unix like systems, the only time I've copied headers under /usr/include, or /usr/local/include to a local project was when I've been trying to do something weird, like trying to compile a new package on an obsolete OS [think trying to get a new version of GCC to compile on RedHat 9 (circa 2003)] or vice versa, e.g getting gcc-2.95 to compile on RedHat Fedora 37. If you find yourself copying includes from the system include directories then IMHO you're making a mistake, and clearly don't understand the build process. That would be true if you find yourself doing this on a Windows system as well. Don't

Lost User

Thanks for such exhaustive reply. Appreciate that very much. It does not answer why specific header out of many is "missing". I did change the reference to "/dbus.." - instead of being "at the end of thee #include chain" be "direct" , but with same result. I suspect the cloning process is the issue. I am going to build (clone) a separate project , maybe use a different example, from the github.

k5054

I still think you're doing something wrong. What github repository are you using? Maybe I'll give it a try and see if I get the same results ... In which case it means that the repository may have issues and the maintainers should be alerted.

"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown

jschell

Myself I don't know what github would have to do with it. When it compiles either the file is there or not. Or it is accessible or not. How does Git impact unless git is causing one of those specific problems?

k5054

My suspicion is that at least one of the following is true: A) the OP is not following the compilation instructions from the git repo B) the OP has not added the prerequisites for the repo to compile C) the repo does not list what resources are needed (e.g dev libraries, cmake, etc). Or that information is buried somewhere in the repo source files, and the OP has not stumbled upon it, yet. The OP also has some odd notion that he can "fix" things by copying header files from somewhere in /usr/include to the local directory. My experience suggests that 99.99% of the time, this will not work, and is about the *worst* solution I could think of to get things to compile.

"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants" Chuckles the clown