How to compile custom PulseAudio module?

Question

I am trying to write a PulseAudio module. To start, first, I wrote the following minimal code for a module as mentioned by this documentation.

#include <pulsecore/module.h>
int pa__init(pa_module *m)
{
    return 0;
}

I tried compiling it with this command:

gcc -g -shared -o module-test.so module-test.c

But it gives error:

 pulsecore/module.h: No such file or directory
 #include <pulsecore/module.h>
          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 compilation terminated.

After searching on the internet, I found that I have to installed libpulse-dev, but I have already installed pulseaudio and libpulse-dev as you can see below.

jyotesh@jyotesh-VM:~$ sudo apt install pulseaudio libpulse-dev
[sudo] password for jyotesh: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
libpulse-dev is already the newest version (1:11.1-1ubuntu7.2).
pulseaudio is already the newest version (1:11.1-1ubuntu7.2).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 10 not upgraded.

I have tried searching for the header file using locate, find, apt-file, etc. I am not able to find where this header file is.

Does anyone know how to compile the PulseAudio module?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 08 '19 at 00:22

I was able to compile the code and build module-test.so file by following the steps from here and here. I will repeat the steps here:

First, I built and installed PulseAudio v12.2 from the source code.

# Clone PulseAudio git repository
git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio.git

# I wanted 12.2 version of PulseAudio, so I checked out that version
cd pulseaudio
git checkout tags/v12.2

# Install the dependencies
sudo apt-get -y build-dep pulseaudio

# Build PulseAudio source code
./bootstrap.sh
make

# Install and configure dynamic linker run-time bindings (so that
# ld can find the libraries that you specify while building your module)
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

After this, I wrote minimal code for a module.

#include <config.h> // this is required, otherwise you will get compilation errors
#include <pulsecore/module.h>
int pa__init(pa_module *m)
{
    return 0;
}

To compile this, I used the command

gcc -g -shared -fPIC -I/home/jyotesh/pulseaudio -I/home/jyotesh/pulseaudio/src -L/home/jyotesh/pulseaudio/.libs -L/usr/local/lib/pulseaudio -o module-test.so module-test.c -lpulsecore-12.2 -lpulsecommon-12.2 -lpulse

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 28 '23 at 09:21

**New PulseAudio code downloading and building:**

**for meson related errors:** 

    > sudo pip3 install meson

    > sudo apt-get install meson

**Download and build:**
    > git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pulseaudio/pulseaudio.git

    > ls

    > cd pulseaudio/

    > meson build ->dependency errors

**Install all these dependency files**

    > sudo apt-get install libsndfile-dev
    
    > sudo apt install libtdb-dev
    
    > sudo apt install libsndfile1-dev
    
    > sudo apt-get install doxygen
    
    > sudo apt-get install libspeexdsp-dev
    
    > sudo apt-get install libudev-dev and libsystemd-dev
    
    > sudo apt-get install libdbus-1-dev

**Build again**

    > meson build

    > ninja -C build

    > cd build/src/ => so's are generated for each respective folders

As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). — Community, May 02 '23 at 20:54

How to compile custom PulseAudio module?

2 Answers2