Author - Copyright (C) 2017-2023 Mark Grant
1 ... Project Description
2 ... AutoTools (configure and make) Installation
3 ... Installation of Distro-Native Packages
4 ... Utility Scripts
5 ... Further Information
This AutoTools project contains the libmgec MGE General C Library.
This library contains sundry functions with no other natural home.
Notable function subjects include:- Generic Binary Search Trees Generic Singly-Linked Lists Generic Doubly-Linked Lists A user-space equivalent to errno and strerrno() A realloc wrapper with error handling Buffers and Messages
If you are going to build, or build against, this libmgec MGE General C Library then you must install the development files from libmgec-dev.
Related packages are the libmgec-dev MGE General C Library Development Files, an API documentation package libmgec-doc and a full documentation package libmgec-int-doc. These Doxygen documentation packages are also available online at - https://m-grant-prg.github.io/libmgec/
At a source modification / development level, this project expects to reside in a git environment. This manifests itself in 2 places:-
- ... .gitignore files are included in the source.
- ... The make target, 'srctarball', relies on the command 'git archive' so it will fail if git is not installed or it is not in a git repository.
a) ... Download either the source or distribution tarball (the .tar.gz file) from:-
https://github.com/m-grant-prg/libmgec/releases
b) ... Extract the tarball preserving the directory structure.
c) ... cd to the directory created.
d) ... If you downloaded the source tarball type 'autoreconf -if'
e) ... Documents can be registered with scrollkeeper but this process will conflict if the documents have already been installed via a package manager. So, if the documents have not been installed by a package manager. (For further information please see docs/misc/AT-Installation.txt.):-
Type './configure --enable-atonly'
and if they have been installed via a package manager:-
Type './configure'
f) ... As root or sudo, type 'make install clean'
g) ... Update shared libraries links and cache. (For further information please see docs/misc/AT-Installation.txt.)
As root or sudo, type 'ldconfig'
(Quote marks are for textual clarity only).
To uninstall the package:
1 ... cd to the directory created in the above install process.
2 ... As root or sudo, type 'make uninstall clean'
3 ... As root or sudo, type 'ldconfig'
Installation packages native to different distributions are available, please refer to the relevant installation section on the wiki at:-
https://github.com/m-grant-prg/libmgec/wiki
In the project root directory there are 2 helper scripts; bootstrap.sh and gen-gnulib.sh.
This misleadingly named script bootstraps the project build and provides other useful features. The main options are probably b, c, C, D and T.
In AutoTools it is usually advisable to perform parallel builds. This means you build somewhere other than the project root. This is because building creates files and they would confuse the project root downwards. I always create a build directory straight off the project root, cd to there and do all build and git work from there, (.gitignore is already set to ignore such a directory).
Assuming you adopt the preceding paragraph then a typical invocation of the script would be:-
../bootstrap.sh --config --build ..
The last '..' points the way to project root.
For the full list of arguments to bootstrap.sh, please refer to the options section of the acmbuild wiki, the options are identical:-
https://github.com/m-grant-prg/acmbuild/wiki
This script generates or re-generates the gnulib requirements, I shan't go into detail here. Please refer to docs/misc/gnulib.txt for further information.
It is useful when setting up the project initially, when you are actually building in what is required and thinking about it, thereafter it is best to use ../bootstrap.sh --gnulib .. as it determines whether to do a re-generate based on whether the cache file exists, i.e. it has been wanted before.
Further information can be found on the wiki at:-
https://github.com/m-grant-prg/libmgec/wiki
Programmer oriented documentation can for the latest stable release can be found at:-
https://m-grant-prg.github.io/libmgec/
The API link will provide documentation relevant to a consumer of the project, whereas, the internal documentation provides that documentation plus documentation aimed at contributors to the project.