Readme.txt revision 5821806d5e7f356e8fa4b058a389a808ea183019
1 2 Windows port 3 ------------ 4 5This directory contains the files required to build this software on the 6native Windows platform. 7 8As a rule of thumb, the root of this directory contains files needed 9to build the library using the command-line tools, while various 10subdirectories contain project files for various IDEs. 11 12 13 1. Building from the command-line 14 ================================= 15 16This is the easiest, preferred and currently supported method. 17 18In order to build from the command-line you need to make sure that 19your compiler works from the command line. This is not always the 20case, often the required environment variables are missing. If you are 21not sure, test if this works first. If it doesn't, you will first have 22to configure your compiler suite to run from the command-line - please 23refer to your compiler's documentation regarding that. 24 25The first thing you want to do is configure the source. You can have 26the configuration script do this automatically for you. The 27configuration script is written in JScript, a Microsoft's 28implementation of the ECMA scripting language. Almost every Windows 29machine can execute this through the Windows Scripting Host. If your 30system lacks the ability to execute JScript for some reason, you must 31perform the configuration manually. 32 33The second step is compiling the source and, optionally, installing it 34to the location of your choosing. 35 36 37 1.1 Configuring the source automatically 38 ---------------------------------------- 39 40The configuration script accepts numerous options. Some of these 41affect features which will be available in the compiled software, 42others affect the way the software is built and installed. To see a 43full list of options supported by the configuration script, run 44 45 cscript configure.js help 46 47from the win32 subdirectory. The configuration script will present you 48the options it accepts and give a biref explanation of these. In every 49case you will have two sets of options. The first set is specific to 50the software you are building and the second one is specific to the 51Windows port. 52 53Once you have decided which options suit you, run the script with that 54options. Here is an example: 55 56 cscript configure.js prefix=c:\opt include=c:\opt\include 57 lib=c:\opt\lib debug=yes 58 59The previous example will configure the process to install the library 60in c:\opt, use c:\opt\include and c:\opt\lib as additional search 61paths for the compiler and the linker and build executables with debug 62symbols. 63 64Note: Please do not use path names which contain spaces. This will 65fail. Allowing this would require me to put almost everything in the 66Makefile in quotas and that looks quite ugly with my 67syntax-highlighting engine. If you absolutely must use spaces in paths 68send me an email and tell me why. If there are enough of you out there 69who need this, or if a single one has a very good reason, I will 70modify the Makefile to allow spaces in paths. 71 72 73 1.2 (Not) Configuring the source manually 74 ----------------------------------------- 75 76The manual configuration is pretty straightforward, but I would 77suggest rather to get a JScript engine and let the configure script do 78it for you. This process involves editing the apropriate Makefile to 79suit your needs, as well as manually generating certain *.h files from 80their *.h.in sources. 81 82If you really have no idea what I am talking about and ask yourself 83what in Gods name do I mean with '*.h files and their *.h.in sources', 84then you really should do an automatic configuration. Which files must 85be generated and what needs to be done with their sources in order to 86generate them is something people who have built this software before 87allready know. You will not find any explanations for that 88here. Please configure the source manually only if you allready know 89what you must do. Otherwise, you have the choice of either getting a 90precompiled binary distribution, or performing the automatic 91configuration. 92 93 94 1.3 Compiling 95 ------------- 96 97After the configuration stage has been completed, you want to build 98the software. You will have to use the make tool which comes with 99your compiler. If you, for example, configured the source to build 100with Microsoft's MSVC compiler, you would use the NMAKE utility. If 101�ou configured it to build with GNU C compiler, mingw edition, you 102would use the GNU make. Assuming you use MSVC, type 103 104 nmake 105 106in the win32 subdirectory.When the building completes, you will find 107the executable files in win32\binaries directory. 108 109You can install the software into the directory you specified to the 110configure script during the configure stage by typing 111 112 nmake install 113 114That would be it, enjoy. 115 116 117 2. Building with the IDE 118 ======================== 119 120Each supported IDE has its project files placed in a subdirectory of 121win32. If you use a particular IDE, you should be able to 122instinctively recognise its project files. When you have found your 123favourites, load them into the IDE and do whatever you would do with 124any other project files. If you are a novice and puzzled about how to 125use particular project files with a particular IDE, check for a readme 126file in that IDEs subdirectory. I won't discuss any particular IDE 127here, because I would like to keep this document as general as 128possible, and there is also a chance that support exists for IDEs 129which I have never seen. 130 131 132November 2002, Igor Zlatkovic <igor@zlatkovic.com> 133 134