INSTALL

Installation Instructions
*************************

Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
notice and this notice are preserved.  This file is offered as-is,
without warranty of any kind.

Basic Installation
==================

Briefly, the shell commands `./autogen.sh && make && make install' 
should configure, build, and install this package.  
The following more-detailed instructions are generic; see the `README' 
file for instructions specific to this package.  Some packages provide this
`INSTALL' file but do not implement all of the features documented
below.  

The `configure' shell script attempts to guess correct values for
various system-dependent variables used during compilation.  It uses
those values to create a `Makefile' in each directory of the package.
It may also create one or more `.h' files containing system-dependent
definitions.  Finally, it creates a shell script `config.status' that
you can run in the future to recreate the current configuration, and a
file `config.log' containing compiler output (useful mainly for
debugging `configure').

It can also use an optional file (typically called `config.cache'
and enabled with `--cache-file=config.cache' or simply `-C') that saves
the results of its tests to speed up reconfiguring.  Caching is
disabled by default to prevent problems with accidental use of stale
cache files.

If you need to do unusual things to compile the package, please try
to figure out how `configure' could check whether to do them, and mail
diffs or instructions to the address given in the `README' so they can
be considered for the next release.  If you are using the cache, and at
some point `config.cache' contains results you don't want to keep, you
may remove or edit it.

   The file `configure.ac' (or `configure.in') is used to create
`configure' by a program called `autoconf'.  You need `configure.ac' if
you want to change it or regenerate `configure' using a newer version
of `autoconf'.

The simplest way to compile this package is:

  1. `cd' to the directory containing the package's source code and type
     `./autogen.sh && ./configure' to configure the package for your system.

     Running `configure' might take a while.  While running, it prints
     some messages telling which features it is checking for.

  2. Type `make' to compile the package.

  3. Type `make install' to install the programs and any data files and
     documentation.  When installing into a prefix owned by root, it is
     recommended that the package be configured and built as a regular
     user, and only the `make install' phase executed with root
     privileges.

  4. You can remove the program binaries and object files from the
     source code directory by typing `make clean'.  To also remove the
     files that `configure' created (so you can compile the package for
     a different kind of computer), type `make distclean'.  There is
     also a `make maintainer-clean' target, but that is intended mainly
     for the package's developers.  If you use it, you may have to get
     all sorts of other programs in order to regenerate files that came
     with the distribution.

  5. Often, you can also type `make uninstall' to remove the installed
     files again.  In practice, not all packages have tested that
     uninstallation works correctly, even though it is required by the
     GNU Coding Standards.

  6. Some packages, particularly those that use Automake, provide `make
     distcheck', which can by used by developers to test that all other
     targets like `make install' and `make uninstall' work correctly.
     This target is generally not run by end users.

Installation Names
==================

By default, `make install' installs the package's commands under
`/usr/local/bin', include files under `/usr/local/include', etc.  You
can specify an installation prefix other than `/usr/local' by giving
`configure' the option `--prefix=PREFIX', where PREFIX must be an
absolute file name.

The most portable way to affect installation locations is to pass the
correct locations to `configure'; however, many packages provide one or
both of the following shortcuts of passing variable assignments to the
`make install' command line to change installation locations without
having to reconfigure or recompile.

The first method involves providing an override variable for each
affected directory.  For example, `make install
prefix=/alternate/directory' will choose an alternate location for all
directory configuration variables that were expressed in terms of
`${prefix}'.  Any directories that were specified during `configure',
but not in terms of `${prefix}', must each be overridden at install
time for the entire installation to be relocated.  The approach of
makefile variable overrides for each directory variable is required by
the GNU Coding Standards, and ideally causes no recompilation.
However, some platforms have known limitations with the semantics of
shared libraries that end up requiring recompilation when using this
method, particularly noticeable in packages that use GNU Libtool.

The second method involves providing the `DESTDIR' variable.  For
example, `make install DESTDIR=/alternate/directory' will prepend
`/alternate/directory' before all installation names.  The approach of
`DESTDIR' overrides is not required by the GNU Coding Standards, and
does not work on platforms that have drive letters.  On the other hand,
it does better at avoiding recompilation issues, and works well even
when some directory options were not specified in terms of `${prefix}'
at `configure' time.