try meson+ninja

meson.build

@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+project(
+        'dbtool',
+        'cpp',
+        version: '1.9.1',
+        license: 'GPL',
+        meson_version: '>=1.3',
+        default_options: [
+                'warning_level=2',
+                'werror=true',
+        ],
+)
+
+add_project_arguments(
+        [
+                '-Wno-unused-parameter',
+                '-Wno-unused-result',
+                '-Wno-missing-braces',
+                '-Wno-format-zero-length',
+                '-Wundef',
+                '-Wvla',
+        ],
+        language: 'cpp',
+)
+
+cpp = meson.get_compiler('cpp')
+prefix = get_option('prefix')
+
+pcre2 = dependency('libpcre2-8')
+#gdbm = dependency('libgdbm6t64')
+#gdbm = dependency('libdb_cxx')
+
+lib_berkeley = cpp.find_library('db_cxx',
+               dirs : ['/usr'])
+inc_berkeley = include_directories('/usr')
+
+conf = configuration_data()
+
+#conf.set10('HAVE_LIBGDBM', gdbm.found())
+conf.set10('HAVE_LIBPCRE', pcre2.found())
+conf.set10('DB_CXX_HEADER', lib_berkeley.found())
+conf.set('prefix', prefix)
+
+platform_h = custom_target(
+    'platform_h',
+    output : 'platform.h',
+    command : ['./platform.sh', conf.get('HAVE_LIBPCRE'), '@OUTPUT@'],
+)
+
+dbtool_sources = files(
+  'cipher.cc',
+  'config.cc',
+  'dbtool.cc',
+  'digest.cc',
+  'engine.cc',
+  'rijndael.cc'
+)
+
+dbtool_deps = [
+  pcre2
+]
+
+dbtool_inc = include_directories('.')
+
+executable(
+        'dbtool',
+        [dbtool_sources, platform_h],
+        include_directories: [dbtool_inc],
+        dependencies: [dbtool_deps, lib_berkeley],
+        include_directories : inc_berkeley,
+        install: true
+)

platform.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+echo "$@"> platform.h