This is the directory where you configure, compile, test, and install UNIX versions of Tcl. This directory also contains source files for Tcl that are specific to UNIX. Some of the files in this directory are used on the PC or Mac platform too, but they all depend on UNIX (POSIX/ANSI C) interfaces and some of them only make sense under UNIX. The rest of this file contains instructions on how to do this. The release should compile and run either "out of the box" or with trivial changes on any UNIX-like system that approximates POSIX, BSD, or System V. We know that it runs on workstations from Sun, H-P, DEC, IBM, and SGI, as well as PCs running Linux, BSDI, and SCO UNIX. To compile for a PC running Windows, see the README file in the directory ../win. To compile for a Macintosh, see the README file in the directory ../mac. RCS: @(#) $Id: README,v 1.2 1998/09/14 18:40:15 stanton Exp $ How To Compile And Install Tcl: ------------------------------- (a) Check for patches as described in ../README. (b) If you have already compiled Tcl once in this directory and are now preparing to compile again in the same directory but for a different platform, or if you have applied patches, type "make distclean" to discard all the configuration information computed previously. (c) Type "./configure". This runs a configuration script created by GNU autoconf, which configures Tcl for your system and creates a Makefile. The configure script allows you to customize the Tcl configuration for your site; for details on how you can do this, type "./configure -help" or refer to the autoconf documentation (not included here). Tcl's "configure" supports the following special switches in addition to the standard ones: --enable-gcc If this switch is set, Tcl will configure itself to use gcc if it is available on your system. Note: it is not safe to modify the Makefile to use gcc after configure is run; if you do this, then information related to dynamic linking will be incorrect. --disable-load If this switch is specified then Tcl will configure itself not to allow dynamic loading, even if your system appears to support it. Normally you can leave this switch out and Tcl will build itself for dynamic loading if your system supports it. --enable-shared If this switch is specified, Tcl will compile itself as a shared library if it can figure out how to do that on this platform. Note: be sure to use only absolute path names (those starting with "/") in the --prefix and --exec_prefix options. (d) Type "make". This will create a library archive called "libtcl.a" or "libtcl.so" and an interpreter application called "tclsh" that allows you to type Tcl commands interactively or execute script files. (e) If the make fails then you'll have to personalize the Makefile for your site or possibly modify the distribution in other ways. First check the file "porting.notes" to see if there are hints for compiling on your system. Then look at the porting Web page described later in this file. If you need to modify Makefile, there are comments at the beginning of it that describe the things you might want to change and how to change them. (f) Type "make install" to install Tcl binaries and script files in standard places. You'll need write permission on the installation directories to do this. The installation directories are determined by the "configure" script and may be specified with the --prefix and --exec_prefix options to "configure". See the Makefile for information on what directories were chosen; you can override these choices by modifying the "prefix" and "exec_prefix" variables in the Makefile. (g) At this point you can play with Tcl by invoking the "tclsh" program and typing Tcl commands. However, if you haven't installed Tcl then you'll first need to set your TCL_LIBRARY variable to hold the full path name of the "library" subdirectory. Note that the installed versions of tclsh, libtcl.a, and libtcl.so have a version number in their names, such as "tclsh8.0" or "libtcl8.0.so"; to use the installed versions, either specify the version number or create a symbolic link (e.g. from "tclsh" to "tclsh8.0"). If you have trouble compiling Tcl, read through the file" porting.notes". It contains information that people have provided about changes they had to make to compile Tcl in various environments. Or, check out the following Web URL: http://www.sunlabs.com/cgi-bin/tcl/info.8.0 This is an on-line database of porting information. We make no guarantees that this information is accurate, complete, or up-to-date, but you may find it useful. If you get Tcl running on a new configuration, we would be happy to receive new information to add to "porting.notes". You can also make a new entry into the on-line Web database. We're also interested in hearing how to change the configuration setup so that Tcl compiles out of the box on more platforms. Test suite ---------- There is a relatively complete test suite for all of the Tcl core in the subdirectory "tests". To use it just type "make test" in this directory. You should then see a printout of the test files processed. If any errors occur, you'll see a much more substantial printout for each error. See the README file in the "tests" directory for more information on the test suite. Note: don't run the tests as superuser: this will cause several of them to fail. The Tcl test suite is very sensitive to proper implementation of ANSI C library procedures such as sprintf and sscanf. If the test suite generates errors, most likely they are due to non-conformance of your system's ANSI C library; such problems are unlikely to affect any real applications so it's probably safe to ignore them.