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| <div class="refentry"> |
| <a name="glib-building"></a><div class="titlepage"></div> |
| <div class="refnamediv"><table width="100%"><tr> |
| <td valign="top"> |
| <h2><span class="refentrytitle">Compiling the GLib package</span></h2> |
| <p>Compiling the GLib Package — How to compile GLib itself</p> |
| </td> |
| <td class="gallery_image" valign="top" align="right"></td> |
| </tr></table></div> |
| <div class="refsect1"> |
| <a name="building"></a><h2>Building the Library on UNIX</h2> |
| <p> |
| On UNIX, GLib uses the standard GNU build system, |
| using <span class="application">autoconf</span> for package |
| configuration and resolving portability issues, |
| <span class="application">automake</span> for building makefiles |
| that comply with the GNU Coding Standards, and |
| <span class="application">libtool</span> for building shared |
| libraries on multiple platforms. The normal sequence for |
| compiling and installing the GLib library is thus: |
| |
| </p> |
| <div class="literallayout"><p><br> |
| <strong class="userinput"><code>./configure</code></strong><br> |
| <strong class="userinput"><code>make</code></strong><br> |
| <strong class="userinput"><code>make install</code></strong><br> |
| </p></div> |
| <p> |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| The standard options provided by <span class="application">GNU |
| autoconf</span> may be passed to the |
| <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script. Please see the |
| <span class="application">autoconf</span> documentation or run |
| <span class="command"><strong>./configure --help</strong></span> for information about |
| the standard options. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| The GTK+ documentation contains |
| <a class="ulink" href="../gtk/gtk-building.html" target="_top">further details</a> |
| about the build process and ways to influence it. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| <div class="refsect1"> |
| <a name="dependencies"></a><h2>Dependencies</h2> |
| <p> |
| Before you can compile the GLib library, you need to have |
| various other tools and libraries installed on your system. |
| Beyond a C compiler (which must implement C90, but does not need |
| to implement C99), the two tools needed during the build process |
| (as differentiated from the tools used in when creating GLib |
| mentioned above such as <span class="application">autoconf</span>) are |
| <span class="command"><strong>pkg-config</strong></span> and GNU make. |
| </p> |
| <div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| <a class="ulink" href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/pkgconfig/" target="_top">pkg-config</a> |
| is a tool for tracking the compilation flags needed for |
| libraries that are used by the GLib library. (For each |
| library, a small <code class="literal">.pc</code> text file is |
| installed in a standard location that contains the compilation |
| flags needed for that library along with version number |
| information.) The version of <span class="command"><strong>pkg-config</strong></span> |
| needed to build GLib is mirrored in the |
| <code class="filename">dependencies</code> directory |
| on the <a class="ulink" href="ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.2/" target="_top">GTK+ FTP |
| site.</a> |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| The GLib Makefiles make use of several features specific to |
| <a class="ulink" href="http://www.gnu.org/software/make" target="_top">GNU |
| make</a>, and will not build correctly with other |
| versions of <span class="command"><strong>make</strong></span>. You will need to |
| install it if you don't already have it on your system. (It |
| may be called <span class="command"><strong>gmake</strong></span> rather than |
| <span class="command"><strong>make</strong></span>.) |
| </p></li> |
| </ul></div> |
| <p> |
| A UNIX build of GLib requires that the system implements at |
| least the original 1990 version of POSIX. Beyond this, it |
| depends on a number of other libraries. |
| </p> |
| <div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "> |
| <li class="listitem"> |
| <p> |
| The <a class="ulink" href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/" target="_top">GNU |
| libiconv library</a> is needed to build GLib if your |
| system doesn't have the <code class="function">iconv()</code> |
| function for doing conversion between character |
| encodings. Most modern systems should have |
| <code class="function">iconv()</code>, however many older systems lack |
| an <code class="function">iconv()</code> implementation. On such systems, |
| you must install the libiconv library. This can be found at: |
| <a class="ulink" href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv" target="_top">http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv</a>. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| If your system has an <code class="function">iconv()</code> implementation but |
| you want to use libiconv instead, you can pass the |
| --with-libiconv option to configure. This forces |
| libiconv to be used. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| Note that if you have libiconv installed in your default include |
| search path (for instance, in <code class="filename">/usr/local/</code>), but |
| don't enable it, you will get an error while compiling GLib because |
| the <code class="filename">iconv.h</code> that libiconv installs hides the |
| system iconv. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| If you are using the native iconv implementation on Solaris |
| instead of libiconv, you'll need to make sure that you have |
| the converters between locale encodings and UTF-8 installed. |
| At a minimum you'll need the SUNWuiu8 package. You probably |
| should also install the SUNWciu8, SUNWhiu8, SUNWjiu8, and |
| SUNWkiu8 packages. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| The native iconv on Compaq Tru64 doesn't contain support for |
| UTF-8, so you'll need to use GNU libiconv instead. (When |
| using GNU libiconv for GLib, you'll need to use GNU libiconv |
| for GNU gettext as well.) This probably applies to related |
| operating systems as well. |
| </p> |
| </li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| The libintl library from the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext" target="_top">GNU gettext |
| package</a> is needed if your system doesn't have the |
| <code class="function">gettext()</code> functionality for handling |
| message translation databases. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| A thread implementation is needed. The thread support in GLib |
| can be based upon POSIX threads or win32 threads. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| GRegex uses the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.pcre.org/" target="_top">PCRE library</a> |
| for regular expression matching. The default is to use the internal |
| version of PCRE that is patched to use GLib for memory management |
| and Unicode handling. If you prefer to use the system-supplied PCRE |
| library you can pass the <code class="option">--with-pcre=system</code> option |
| to, but it is not recommended. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| The optional extended attribute support in GIO requires the |
| getxattr() family of functions that may be provided by glibc or |
| by the standalone libattr library. To build GLib without extended |
| attribute support, use the <code class="option">--disable-xattr</code> |
| option. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| The optional SELinux support in GIO requires libselinux. |
| To build GLib without SELinux support, use the |
| <code class="option">--disable-selinux</code> option. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| The optional support for DTrace requires the |
| <code class="filename">sys/sdt.h</code> header, which is provided |
| by SystemTap on Linux. To build GLib without DTrace, use |
| the <code class="option">--disable-dtrace</code> configure option. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| The optional support for |
| <a class="ulink" href="http://sourceware.org/systemtap/" target="_top">SystemTap</a> |
| can be disabled with the <code class="option">--disable-systemtap</code> |
| configure option. |
| </p></li> |
| </ul></div> |
| </div> |
| <div class="refsect1"> |
| <a name="extra-configuration-options"></a><h2>Extra Configuration Options</h2> |
| <p> |
| In addition to the normal options, the |
| <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script in the GLib |
| library supports these additional arguments: |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--enable-debug</code>. </b> |
| Turns on various amounts of debugging support. Setting this to 'no' |
| disables g_assert(), g_return_if_fail(), g_return_val_if_fail() and |
| all cast checks between different object types. Setting it to 'minimum' disables only cast checks. Setting it to 'yes' enables |
| <a class="link" href="glib-running.html#G-DEBUG:CAPS" title="G_DEBUG">runtime debugging</a>. |
| The default is 'minimum'. |
| Note that 'no' is fast, but dangerous as it tends to destabilize |
| even mostly bug-free software by changing the effect of many bugs |
| from simple warnings into fatal crashes. Thus |
| <code class="option">--enable-debug=no</code> should <span class="emphasis"><em>not</em></span> |
| be used for stable releases of GLib. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-gc-friendly</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-gc-friendly</code>. </b> |
| By default, and with <code class="systemitem">--disable-gc-friendly</code> |
| as well, Glib does not clear the memory for certain objects before |
| they are freed. For example, Glib may decide to recycle GList nodes |
| by putting them in a free list. However, memory profiling and debugging |
| tools like <a class="ulink" href="http://www.valgrind.org" target="_top">Valgrind</a> work |
| better if an application does not keep dangling pointers to freed |
| memory (even though these pointers are no longer dereferenced), or |
| invalid pointers inside uninitialized memory. |
| The <code class="systemitem">--enable-gc-friendly</code> option makes Glib |
| clear memory in these situations: |
| </p> |
| <div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| When shrinking a GArray, Glib will clear the memory no longer |
| available in the array: shrink an array from 10 bytes to 7, and |
| the last 3 bytes will be cleared. This includes removals of single |
| and multiple elements. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| When growing a GArray, Glib will clear the new chunk of memory. |
| Grow an array from 7 bytes to 10 bytes, and the last 3 bytes will |
| be cleared. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| The above applies to GPtrArray as well. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| When freeing a node from a GHashTable, Glib will first clear |
| the node, which used to have pointers to the key and the value |
| stored at that node. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| When destroying or removing a GTree node, Glib will clear the node, |
| which used to have pointers to the node's value, and the left and |
| right subnodes. |
| </p></li> |
| </ul></div> |
| <p> |
| Since clearing the memory has a cost, |
| <code class="systemitem">--disable-gc-friendly</code> is the default. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-mem-pools</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-mem-pools</code>. </b> |
| Many small chunks of memory are often allocated via collective pools |
| in GLib and are cached after release to speed up reallocations. |
| For sparse memory systems this behaviour is often inferior, so |
| memory pools can be disabled to avoid excessive caching and force |
| atomic maintenance of chunks through the <code class="function">g_malloc()</code> |
| and <code class="function">g_free()</code> functions. Code currently affected by |
| this: |
| </p> |
| <div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| <span class="structname">GMemChunk</span>s become basically non-effective |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| <span class="structname">GSignal</span> disables all caching |
| (potentially very slow) |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| <span class="structname">GType</span> doesn't honour the |
| <span class="structname">GTypeInfo</span> |
| <em class="structfield"><code>n_preallocs</code></em> field anymore |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| the <span class="structname">GBSearchArray</span> flag |
| <code class="literal">G_BSEARCH_ALIGN_POWER2</code> becomes non-functional |
| </p></li> |
| </ul></div> |
| <p> |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--with-threads</code>. </b> |
| Specify a thread implementation to use. Available options are |
| 'posix' or 'win32'. Normally, <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> |
| should be able to work out the system threads API on its own. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-regex</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-regex</code>. </b> |
| Do not compile GLib with regular expression support. |
| GLib will be smaller because it will not need the |
| PCRE library. This is however not recommended, as |
| programs may need GRegex. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--with-pcre</code>. </b> |
| Specify whether to use the internal or the system-supplied |
| PCRE library. |
| </p> |
| <div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| 'internal' means that GRegex will be compiled to use |
| the internal PCRE library. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| 'system' means that GRegex will be compiled to use |
| the system-supplied PCRE library. |
| </p></li> |
| </ul></div> |
| <p> |
| Using the internal PCRE is the preferred solution: |
| </p> |
| <div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| System-supplied PCRE has a separated copy of the big tables |
| used for Unicode handling. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| Some systems have PCRE libraries compiled without some needed |
| features, such as UTF-8 and Unicode support. |
| </p></li> |
| <li class="listitem"><p> |
| PCRE uses some global variables for memory management and |
| other features. In the rare case of a program using both |
| GRegex and PCRE (maybe indirectly through a library), |
| this variables could lead to problems when they are modified. |
| </p></li> |
| </ul></div> |
| <p> |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-included-printf</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-included-printf</code>. </b> |
| By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will try |
| to auto-detect whether the C library provides a suitable set |
| of printf() functions. In detail, <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> |
| checks that the semantics of snprintf() are as specified by C99 |
| and that positional parameters as specified in the Single Unix |
| Specification are supported. If this not the case, GLib will |
| include an implementation of the printf() family. |
| |
| These options can be used to explicitly control whether |
| an implementation of the printf() family should be included or not. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-Bsymbolic</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-Bsymbolic</code>. </b> |
| By default, GLib uses the -Bsymbolic-functions linker |
| flag to avoid intra-library PLT jumps. A side-effect |
| of this is that it is no longer possible to override |
| internal uses of GLib functions with |
| <code class="envar">LD_PRELOAD</code>. Therefore, it may make |
| sense to turn this feature off in some situations. |
| The <code class="option">--disable-Bsymbolic</code> option allows |
| to do that. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-gtk-doc</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-gtk-doc</code>. </b> |
| By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will try |
| to auto-detect whether the |
| <span class="application">gtk-doc</span> package is installed. |
| If it is, then it will use it to extract and build the |
| documentation for the GLib library. These options |
| can be used to explicitly control whether |
| <span class="application">gtk-doc</span> should be |
| used or not. If it is not used, the distributed, |
| pre-generated HTML files will be installed instead of |
| building them on your machine. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-man</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-man</code>. </b> |
| By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will try |
| to auto-detect whether <span class="application">xsltproc</span> |
| and the necessary Docbook stylesheets are installed. |
| If they are, then it will use them to rebuild the included |
| man pages from the XML sources. These options can be used |
| to explicitly control whether man pages should be rebuilt |
| used or not. The distribution includes pre-generated man |
| pages. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-xattr</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-xattr</code>. </b> |
| By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will try |
| to auto-detect whether the getxattr() family of functions |
| is available. If it is, then extended attribute support |
| will be included in GIO. These options can be used to |
| explicitly control whether extended attribute support |
| should be included or not. getxattr() and friends can |
| be provided by glibc or by the standalone libattr library. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-selinux</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-selinux</code>. </b> |
| By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will |
| auto-detect if libselinux is available and include |
| SELinux support in GIO if it is. These options can be |
| used to explicitly control whether SELinux support should |
| be included. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-dtrace</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-dtrace</code>. </b> |
| By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will |
| detect if DTrace support is available, and use it. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--disable-systemtap</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--enable-systemtap</code>. </b> |
| This option requires DTrace support. If it is available, then |
| the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will also check for |
| the presence of SystemTap. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--enable-coverage</code> and |
| <code class="systemitem">--disable-coverage</code>. </b> |
| Enable the generation of coverage reports for the GLib tests. |
| This requires the lcov frontend to gcov from the |
| <a class="ulink" href="http://ltp.sourceforge.net" target="_top">Linux Test Project</a>. |
| To generate a coverage report, use the lcov make target. The |
| report is placed in the <code class="filename">glib-lcov</code> directory. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--with-runtime-libdir=RELPATH</code>. </b> |
| Allows specifying a relative path to where to install the runtime |
| libraries (meaning library files used for running, not developing, |
| GLib applications). This can be used in operating system setups where |
| programs using GLib needs to run before e.g. <code class="filename">/usr</code> |
| is mounted. |
| For example, if LIBDIR is <code class="filename">/usr/lib</code> and |
| <code class="filename">../../lib</code> is passed to |
| <code class="systemitem">--with-runtime-libdir</code> then the |
| runtime libraries are installed into <code class="filename">/lib</code> rather |
| than <code class="filename">/usr/lib</code>. |
| </p> |
| <p><b><code class="systemitem">--with-python</code>. </b> |
| Allows specifying the Python interpreter to use, either as an absolute path, |
| or as a program name. GLib can be built with Python 2 (at least version 2.5) |
| or Python 3. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| </div> |
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