Tcl UNIX README
---------------

RCS: @(#) $Id: README,v 1.30 2008/01/20 21:19:57 hobbs Exp $

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 MacOSX 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://www.tcl.tk/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://www.tcl.tk/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 MacOSX, see the README file in the directory ../macosx.

How To Compile And Install Tcl:
-------------------------------

(a) 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.

(b) If you need to reconfigure because you changed any of the .in or
    .m4 files, you will need to run autoconf to create a new
    ./configure script. Most users will NOT need to do this since
    a configure script is already provided.

    (in the tcl/unix directory)
    autoconf

(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-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.
	--enable-symbols	build with debugging symbols.  By default
				standard debugging symbols are used.  You
				can specify the value "mem" to include
				TCL_MEM_DEBUG memory debugging, "compile"
				to include TCL_COMPILE_DEBUG debugging, or
				"all" to enable all internal debugging.
	--disable-symbols	build without debugging symbols
	--enable-64bit		enable 64bit support (where applicable)
	--disable-64bit		disable 64bit support (where applicable)
	--enable-64bit-vis	enable 64bit Sparc VIS support
	--disable-64bit-vis	disable 64bit Sparc VIS support
	--enable-langinfo	Allows use of modern nl_langinfo check for
				better localization support.  This is on by
				default on platforms where nl_langinfo is
				found.
	--disable-langinfo	Specifically disables use of nl_langinfo.
	--enable-man-symlinks	Use symlinks for linking the manpages that
				should be reachable under several names.
	--enable-man-compression=PROG
				Compress the manpages using PROG.
	--enable-dtrace		Enable tcl DTrace provider (if DTrace is
				available on the platform), c.f. tclDTrace.d
				for descriptions of the probes made available,
				see http://wiki.tcl.tk/DTrace for more details.
    Mac OS X only: 
	--enable-framework	package Tcl as a framework.
	--disable-corefoundation disable use of CoreFoundation API and revert to
				standard select based notifier, required when
				using naked fork (i.e. not followed by execve).

    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. Also note that
    you should use the same compiler when building extensions.

    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<version>.a" or "libtcl<version>.so" and an interpreter
    application called "tclsh" that allows you to type Tcl commands
    interactively or execute script files.  It will also create
    a stub library archive "libtclstub<version>.a" that developers
    may link against other C code to produce loadable extensions for Tcl.

(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 porting Web page above to see if there are hints
    for compiling on your system.  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.  The installed binaries
    have embedded within them path values relative to the install
    directory.  If you change your mind about where Tcl should be
    installed, start this procedure over again from step (a) so that
    the path embedded in the binaries agrees with the install location.

(g) At this point you can play with Tcl by running the installed "tclsh"
    executable, or via the "make shell" target, and typing Tcl commands
    at the interactive prompt.

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.
