ORC-1906: Support `Meson` build

[WillAyd]

I have implemented the Meson build system in other projects like arrow-adbc and arrow-nanoarrow. I am in the process of adding Meson to the Apache Arrow C++ implementation (FWIW, CMake will still be the main build system; Meson support is "second tier")

Since Arrow C++ depends on orc, it would be nice to have a Meson configuration available for this project. Ideally this could be offered in the project here, although an external Meson WrapDB entry would also be workable

[wgtmac]

Thanks for creating this! Do you have a concrete plan to add Meson support? My general concern is about the overhead for maintainers.

[WillAyd]

Is that question in regards to Apache Arrow or Orc? The former has been added in pieces, although its technically a "second-tier" component, i.e. the project allows patches but doesn't hold up PRs right now if the configuration is broken by other changes in the project.

Regarding Orc - I don't have any plan as I am not familiar with the project :-) but if its something that the project team is open to, then an implementation directly in this repo (even if a "second tier") component is preferable, although a WrapDB configuration is viable as well

[wgtmac]

I agree that the best solution is to natively support Meson in the Apache ORC. However, I don't have any bandwidth to work on this in the near future. Do you have an estimation on the amount of work? It only depends on Protobuf/Snappy/Zlib/Brotil/Zstd/LZ4.

cc @ffacs @luffy-zh

[WillAyd]

I'll take a look. Just from an initial glance at the CMake configuration, I don't think it would be too difficult. For starters, all of the dependencies you mentioned are already available in Meson's WrapDB, so including them won't be a problem (unless very specific versions are required that aren't available there)

The part I have no familiarity with wrapping in Meson is the Java targets, but it looks like the CMake configuration just wraps those in custom_command targets, so that should be transferable over to Meson.

There's also a few options in the CMake configuration that wouldn't make sense to try and build (ex: TEST_VALIGRIND_MEMCHECK option is a built-in feature; no need for library authors to do this). Things won't be completely apples to apples, but as long as that is not the goal I can take a stab at it

[dongjoon-hyun]

Thank you, @WillAyd and @wgtmac . If there is a working PR, I can help the verification . Feel free to ping me .

[dongjoon-hyun]

For the record, we are starting to discuss to Apache ORC 2.2 release earlier than the predefined schedule here.

• https://lists.apache.org/thread/8wftl03kknm28c7f9rdxg2ckb7nn1q66