There are a million and one of those libraries, I know. The reason I sat down and did this on a Friday night is simple: all the other ones were abandoned years ago and are no longer actively maintained. Arguably the same will happen to this one too but it is in active development while I still need it for a weekend project.
Disclosure: It has only been tested on Linux systems(it may or may not work on a Raspberry Pi, I intend to try it in the distant future). Does it work on other operating systems? Maybe, maybe not...
- rtl-sdr-devel or however your distro has decided to call it.
- The appropriate udev rules for your SDR(tested with a RTL2838).
If you want to view the output of the examples, you can check the script here.