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+.. Copyright 2013-2018 Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC and other
+   Spack Project Developers. See the top-level COPYRIGHT file for details.
+
+   SPDX-License-Identifier: (Apache-2.0 OR MIT)
+
+.. _mesonpackage:
+
+------------
+MesonPackage
+------------
+
+Much like Autotools and CMake, Meson is a build system.  But it is
+meant to be both fast and as user friendly as possible.  GNOME's goal
+is to port modules to use the Meson build system.
+
+^^^^^^
+Phases
+^^^^^^
+
+The ``MesonPackage`` base class comes with the following phases:
+
+#. ``meson`` - generate ninja files
+#. ``build`` - build the project
+#. ``install`` - install the project
+
+By default, these phases run:
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+   $ mkdir spack-build
+   $ cd spack-build
+   $ meson .. --prefix=/path/to/installation/prefix
+   $ ninja
+   $ ninja test  # optional
+   $ ninja install
+
+
+Any of these phases can be overridden in your package as necessary.
+There is also a ``check`` method that looks for a ``test`` target
+in the build file. If a ``test`` target exists and the user runs:
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+   $ spack install --test=root <meson-package>
+
+
+Spack will run ``ninja test`` after the build phase.
+
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+Important files
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Packages that use the Meson build system can be identified by the
+presence of a ``meson.build`` file. This file declares things
+like build instructions and dependencies.
+
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+Build system dependencies
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+At the bare minimum, packages that use the Meson build system need
+``meson`` and ```ninja``` dependencies. Since this is always the case,
+the ``MesonPackage`` base class already contains:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+   depends_on('meson', type='build')
+   depends_on('ninja', type='build')
+
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+Passing arguments to meson
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+If you need to pass any arguments to the ``meson`` call, you can
+override the ``meson_args`` method like so:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+   def meson_args(self):
+       return ['--default-library=both']
+
+
+This method can be used to pass flags as well as variables.
+
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+External documentation
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+For more information on the Meson build system, see:
+https://mesonbuild.com/index.html