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3 Building Libretto

Before Libretto can be built, it must first be configured. This is done by running the configure script that is distributed with Libretto. For example:

     $ gzip -dc libretto-2.1.tar.gz | tar xf -
     $ cd libretto-2.1
     $ ./configure

The configure script can take options to alter certain features of the build process. For details, say

     $ ./configure --help

After configuration, the library may be built by saying

     $ make

and installed by saying

     $ make install

You may also run the test suite by saying

     $ make check

The library should build without any additional user intervention on all supported platforms.

Of course, the problem arises when considering the meaning of the phrase `supported platforms', though the situation here has improved dramatically since Libretto moved into `production' status. Libretto has been developed principally on Linux/ia32 (‘i386-pc-linux-gnulibc1’, in terms of GNU configuration names). It has had some testing under FreeBSD on Intel processors, under Digital Unix on Alpha processors, and under Solaris on SPARC processors. However, I expect it to work perfectly under any broadly POSIX-like system, on all processors including 64-bit machines such as the DEC Alpha/AXP and the UltraSparc.1

Note that the GNU C compiler (or a derivative) may be required on some platforms to build Libretto. Programs linking against Libretto may be built with any ANSI-compliant compiler (though see Using for some additional information about the header file).

GNU Make, the GNU C Library, and the GNU linker (from GNU binutils) are no longer required for building, though they were in earlier releases. Note, however, that GNU Make is required for development – this is a side-effect of using GNU Automake.


Footnotes

[1] I hope soon to be able to start porting Libretto to non-POSIX Unix-like platforms; specifically, I may be able to get access to what is presumably one of the last machines anywhere running Masscomp RTU. I expect that this will be of interest only to geeks, though. :-)