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