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Quick-start build instructions
------------------------------
1) Configure the package:
./configure
2) Compile it:
make
3) Install it:
make install
This final step may require temporary root access (eg. with sudo) if
you don't have write permission to the directory in which cairo will
be installed.
NOTE: If you are working with source from git/cvs rather than from a tar
file, then you should use ./autogen.sh in place of ./configure
anywhere it is mentioned in these instructions.
More detailed build instructions
--------------------------------
1) Configure the package
The first step in building cairo is to configure the package by
running the configure script. [Note: if you don't have a configure
script, skip down below to the Extremely detailed build
instructions.]
The configure script attempts to automatically detect as much as
possible about your system. So, you should primarily just accept
its defaults by running:
./configure
The configure script does accept a large number of options for
fine-tuning its behavior. See "./configure --help" for a complete
list. The most commonly used options are discussed here.
--prefix=PREFIX
This option specifies the directory under which the software
should be installed. By default configure will choose a
directory such as /usr/local. If you would like to install
cairo to some other location, pass the director to configure
with the --prefix option. For example:
./configure --prefix=/opt/cairo
would install cairo into the /opt/cairo directory. You could
also choose a prefix directory within your home directory if
you don't have write access to any system-wide directory.
After installing into a custom prefix, you will need to set
some environment variables to allow the software to be
found. Assuming the /opt/cairo prefix and assuming you are
using the bash shell, the following environment variables
should be set:
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/cairo/lib/pkgconfig
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/cairo/lib
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH LD_LIBRARY_PATH
(NOTE: On Mac OS X, at least, use DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH in place
of LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.)
--enable-XYZ
--enable-XYZ=yes
--enable-XYZ=auto
--enable-XYZ=no
--disable-XYZ
Cairo's various font and surface backends and other features can be
enabled or disabled at configure time. Features can be divided into
three categories based on their default state:
* default=yes: These are the recommended features like PNG functions
and PS/PDF/SVG backends. It is highly recommended to not disable
these features but if that's really what one wants, they can be
disabled using --disable-XYZ.
* default=auto: These are the "native" features, that is, they are
platform specific, like the Xlib surface backend. You probably
want one or two of these. They will be automatically enabled if
all their required facilities are available. Or you can use
--enable-XYZ or --disable-XYZ to make your desire clear, and then
cairo errs during configure if your intention cannot be followed.
* default=no: These are the "experimental" features, and hence by
default off. Use --enable-XYZ to enable them.
The list of all features and their default state can be seen in the
output of ./configure --help.
2) Compile the package:
This step is very simple. Just:
make
The Makefiles included with cairo are designed to work on as many
different systems as possible.
When cairo is compiled, you can also run some automated tests of
cairo with:
make check
NOTE: Some versions of X servers will cause the -xlib tests to
report failures in make check even when cairo is working just
fine. If you see failures in nothing but -xlib tests, please
examine the corresponding -xlib-out.png images and compare them to
the -ref.png reference images (the -xlib-diff.png images might also
be useful). If the results seem "close enough" please do not report
a bug against cairo as the "failures" you are seeing are just due
to subtle variations in X server implementations.
3) Install the package:
The final step is to install the package with:
make install
If you are installing to a system-wide location you may need to
temporarily acquire root access in order to perform this
operation. A good way to do this is to use the sudo program:
sudo make install
Extremely detailed build instructions
-------------------------------------
So you want to build cairo but it didn't come with a configure
script. This is probably because you have checked out the latest
in-development code via git. If you need to be on the bleeding edge,
(for example, because you're wanting to develop some aspect of cairo
itself), then you're in the right place and should read on.
However, if you don't need such a bleeding-edge version of cairo, then
you might prefer to start by building the latest stable cairo release:
or perhaps the latest (unstable) development snapshot:
There you'll find nicely packaged tar files that include a configure
script so you can go back the the simpler instructions above.
But you're still reading, so you're someone that loves to
learn. Excellent! We hope you'll learn enough to make some excellent
contributions to cairo. Since you're not using a packaged tar file,
you're going to need some additional tools beyond just a C compiler in
order to compile cairo. Specifically, you need the following utilities:
automake
autoconf
autoheader
aclocal
libtoolize
pkg-config [at least version 0.16]
gtk-doc (recommended)
Hopefully your platform of choice has packages readily available so
that you can easily install things with your system's package
management tool, (such as "apt-get install automake" on Debian or "yum
install automake" on Fedora, etc.). Note that Mac OS X ships with
glibtoolize instead of libtoolize.
Once you have all of those packages installed, the next step is to run
the autogen.sh script. That can be as simple as:
./autogen.sh
But before you run that command, note that the autogen.sh script
accepts all the same arguments as the configure script, (and in fact,
will generate the configure script and run it with the arguments you
provide). So go back up to step (1) above and see what additional
arguments you might want to pass, (such as prefix). Then continue with
the instructions, simply using ./autogen.sh in place of ./configure.
Happy hacking!