Configuring the right options to build programs to work with the libraries--especially shared libraries--installed on a POSIX system can be very complicated. Various utilies with names that end in config can return command-line options for the GNU Compiler Collection &SCons; construction environments have a &ParseConfig; method that executes a utility and configures the appropriate construction variables in the environment based on the command-line options returned by the specified command. env = Environment() env.ParseConfig("pkg-config") &SCons; will execute the specified command string and XXX % scons -Q scons: `.' is up to date. Must specify package names on the command line XXX