Build Instructions
------------------

* Requirements
  ------------

  - A POSIX-compliant C development environment
  - GNU make version 3.81 or later
  - skalibs version 2.0.0.0 or later: http://skarnet.org/software/skalibs/

 This software is Linux-specific. It will run on a Linux kernel,
version 2.6.32 or later.


* Standard usage
  --------------

  ./configure && make && sudo make install

 will work for most users.
 It will install the binaries in /bin.

 You can strip the binaries and libraries of their extra symbols via
"make strip" before the "make install" phase. It will shave a few bytes
off them.


* Customization
  -------------

 You can customize paths via flags given to configure.
 See ./configure --help for a list of all available configure options.


* Environment variables
  ---------------------

 Controlling a build process via environment variables is a big and
dangerous hammer. You should try and pass flags to configure instead;
nevertheless, the standard environment variables are recognized.

 The value of the CROSS_COMPILE environment variable will prefix the
building tools' names. The --enable-cross option is preferred, see
"Cross-compilation" below.
 
 If the CC environment variable is set, its value will override compiler
detection by configure.

 The values of CFLAGS, CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS will be appended to flags
auto-detected by configure. To entirely override the flags set by
configure, use make -e.

 The value of LDLIBS will be appended by make to command lines that link
an executable, even without the -e option.

 The Makefile supports the DESTDIR convention for staging.


* Shared libraries
  ----------------

 Software from skarnet.org is small enough that shared libraries are
generally not worth using. Static linking is simpler and incurs less
runtime overhead and less points of failure: so by default, shared
libraries are not built and binaries are linked against the static
versions of the skarnet.org libraries. Nevertheless, you can:
  * build shared libraries: --enable-shared
  * link binaries against shared libraries: --disable-allstatic


* Static binaries
  ---------------

 By default, binaries are linked against static versions of all the
libraries they depend on, except for the libc. You can enforce
linking against the static libc with --enable-static-libc.

 Be aware that the GNU libc behaves badly with static linking and
produces huge executables, which is why it is not the default.
Other libcs are better suited to static linking, for instance
musl: http://musl-libc.org/


* Cross-compilation
  -----------------

 skarnet.org packages centralize all the difficulty of
cross-compilation in one place: skalibs. Once you have
cross-compiled skalibs, the rest is easy.

 Use the --enable-cross=PREFIX option to configure, or simply
--enable-cross if your default toolchain is a cross-compiling
toolchain. And make sure to use the correct version of skalibs
for your target, and the correct sysdeps directory, making use
of the --with-include, --with-lib, --with-dynlib and --with-sysdeps
options as necessary.
 

* The slashpackage convention
  ---------------------------

 The slashpackage convention (http://cr.yp.to/slashpackage.html)
is a package installation scheme that provides a few guarantees
over other conventions such as the FHS, for instance fixed
absolute pathnames. skarnet.org packages support it: use the
--enable-slashpackage option to configure, or
--enable-slashpackage=DIR for a prefixed DIR/package tree.
This option will activate slashpackage support during the build
and set slashpackage-compatible installation directories.
Other options setting individual installation directories will be
ignored.

 When using slashpackage, two additional Makefile targets are
available after "make install":
 - "make update" changes the default version of the software to the
freshly installed one. (This is useful when you have several installed
versions of the same software, which slashpackage supports.)
 - "make -L global-links" adds links from /command and /library.so to the
default version of the binaries and shared libraries. The "-L" option to
make is necessary because targets are symbolic links, and the default make
behaviour is to check the pointed file's timestamp and not the symlink's
timestamp.


* Out-of-tree builds
  ------------------

 skarnet.org packages do not support out-of-tree builds. They
are small, so it does not cost much to duplicate the entire
source tree if parallel builds are needed.