how do i include a non-code data/resources directory into my project so that SDL can see it?

[carotteatomique]

hi! sorry in advance if this question is silly, i haven't been able to make it work by myself using the documentation...

i am making a project using SDL (and SDL_image), and i need to load an image from that project, to render it on the screen. it is located in data/image.png, but my program needs it to be in the build folder, same place as where the executable is. from SDL, loading "data/image.png" attempts to load project/build/data/image.png, not project/data/image.png. ideally, i should make my program think that its current directory is project, not build, so that hacks (like loading "../data/image.png" from SDL, or putting the data directory inside of build manually, not ideal when using git) are not necessary.

how would i accomplish this using Meson? i've tried using install_data, install_subdir (which seems to be deprecated anyways), but they don't work, or if they do, i can't figure them out.

[yudin-s]

For this case, install_data() / install_subdir() are the wrong layer unless you are testing the installed app. They affect meson install; they do not make files appear next to your executable in the build tree while you run from build/.

If your program is going to open data/image.png while its current directory is the build directory, make Meson create build/data/image.png.

For one or a few files, put a small meson.build inside data/:

# data/meson.build
configure_file(
  input: 'image.png',
  output: 'image.png',
  copy: true,
)

and from the top-level meson.build:

subdir('data')

exe = executable('mygame', 'src/main.c', dependencies: [sdl2_dep, sdl2_image_dep])

Because this runs in the data subdirectory, the copied file lands in the matching build subdirectory:

project/
  data/image.png
  build/data/image.png

That matches your SDL_image call for data/image.png when the program is launched from build/.

For more assets, the same idea scales by listing/copying the files from data/meson.build. Meson's configure_file(copy: true) copies at configure time and regenerates the build files if the input changes. If you want a normal build-time copy target with dependency tracking, Meson's own configure_file docs point to fs.copyfile() from the filesystem module instead.

Two caveats:

• This is a development/build-tree convenience. For a real installed app, use install_data() / install_subdir() into something like get_option('datadir') / meson.project_name() and make the program locate installed assets explicitly.
• Long term, it is usually better for the program not to depend on whatever the process current directory happens to be. But for a simple SDL project, copying data/ into the build tree is a perfectly normal first step.

If this gets SDL loading the asset from the Meson build dir, please mark it as answered so the next data/ asset question is easier to find.

[carotteatomique]

thank you, this worked!