Tcl UNIX README --------------- 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. Updated forms of the information found in this file is available at: http://dev.scriptics.com/doc/howto/compile.html#unix For information on platforms where Tcl is known to compile, along with any porting notes for getting it to work on those platforms, see: http://dev.scriptics.com/software/tcltk/platforms.html 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 1.15 2001/04/02 01:59:55 hobbs 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) If there is no "configure" script in this directory it is because you are working out of the source repository (i.e., CVS) instead of working from a source distribution. In this case you need to use "autoconf" to generate the configure script. It runs with no arguments. Remember to run it here and down in the dltest directory. (in the tcl/unix directory) autoconf cd dltest ; autoconf ; cd .. (d) 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-threads If this switch is set, Tcl will compile itself with multithreading support. --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. This is the default on platforms where we know how to build shared libraries. --disable-shared If this switch is specified, Tcl will compile itself as a static library. Note: by default gcc will be used if it can be located on the PATH. if you want to use cc instead of gcc, set the CC environment variable to "cc" before running configure. It is not safe to edit the Makefile to use gcc after configure is run. Note: be sure to use only absolute path names (those starting with "/") in the --prefix and --exec_prefix options. (e) 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. (f) 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 porting Web page above to see if there are hints for compiling on your system. If you need to modify Makefile, are comments at the beginning of it that describe the things you might want to change and how to change them. (g) 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. (h) 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 "tclsh8.4" or "libtcl8.4.so"; to use the installed versions, either specify the version number or create a symbolic link (e.g. from "tclsh" to "tclsh8.4"). If you have trouble compiling Tcl, see the URL noted above about working platforms. It contains information that people have provided about changes they had to make to compile Tcl in various environments. We're also interested in hearing how to change the configuration setup so that Tcl compiles on additional platforms "out of the box". 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. If a test is failing consistently, please send us a bug report with as much detail as you can manage. Please use the online database at http://tcl.sourceforge.net/ 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.