Info Catalog tlbuild: Build distribution tlbuild: Building tlbuild: Build one engine

tlbuild: Build one package

 
 4.5 Build one package
 =====================
 
 To build one package, the basic idea is to use the 'configure' option
 '--disable-all-pkgs' (⇒--disable-all-pkgs).  Then all program and
 library modules are configured but none are made.  However, the
 'Makefile's still contain all build rules and dependencies and can be
 invoked to build an individual program or library, first building any
 required libraries.
 
    Here is an example from start to finish for working on 'dvipdfm-x'.
 (Unfortunately, this does not suffice for building the TeX engines; see
 the next section.)
 
      mkdir mydir && cd mydir  # new working directory
 
      # Get sources (<https://tug.org/texlive/svn>), e.g.:
      rsync -a --delete --exclude=.svn --exclude=Work \
            tug.org::tldevsrc/Build/source/ .
 
      # Create build directory:
      mkdir Work && cd Work
 
      # Do the configure:
      ../configure --disable-all-pkgs --enable-dvipdfm-x \
        -C CFLAGS=-g CXXFLAGS=-g >&outc || echo fail
 
      # Do the make:
      make >&outm || echo fail
 
      # Test:
      cd texk/dvipdfm-x
      make check
 
    Then you can modify source files in 'mydir/texk/dvipdfm-x' and rerun
 'make' in 'mydir/Work/texk/dvipdfm-x' to rebuild; that build directory
 is where the binary ends up and where you can run a debugger, etc.
 
    The second line of the 'configure' invocation shows examples of extra
 things you likely want to specify if you intend to hack the sources (and
 not just build binaries): the '-C' speeds 'configure' by enabling a
 cache file, and the 'CFLAGS' and 'CXXFLAGS' settings eliminate compiler
 optimization for debugging purposes.
 
    Of course, you need to actually look at the output and check that
 things are working.  There are many 'configure' options you can tweak as
 desired; check the output from 'configure --help'.  It is also a good
 idea to run 'make check' after making any changes, to ensure that
 whatever tests have been written still pass.
 
    Finally, the above retrieves the entire TL source tree (several
 hundred megabytes).  It is natural to ask if this is really necessary.
 Strictly speaking, the answer is no, but it is vastly more convenient to
 do so.  If you cut down the source tree, you must also give additional
 'configure' flags to individually disable using system versions of
 libraries, or the intricacies of the dependencies (such as 'teckit'
 requiring 'zlib') will have undesired side effects.  For an example of
 this approach, see the 'build-pdftex.sh' script in the 'pdftex'
 development source (details at <http://pdftex.org>), which is indeed
 such a cut-down TL source tree.
 
    Some libraries and programs require C++11.  If you want to build with
 an older compiler lacking such support, you need to (re)move those
 source directories; specifying '--disable' for them does not suffice,
 unfortunately.  Specifically, before running 'configure':
 
      rm -rf libs/icu libs/graphite2 texk/dvisvgm
 
    Also, even with '--disable-all-pkgs', dependencies are (currently)
 checked.  For instance, if a (non-MacOSX) system does not have
 'fontconfig', XeTeX cannot be built (⇒Prerequisites), and
 'configure' will terminate even with '--disable-xetex'.  To proceed
 without such dependencies, specify '--enable-missing' also.  (Patches to
 improve this would be most welcome.)
 
    By default, the 'gcc' compilers will be used if present; otherwise,
 individual packages may use something different.  You can explicitly
 specify the compilers to be used with the environment variables 'CC',
 'CXX', and 'OBJCXX'.
 

Info Catalog tlbuild: Build distribution tlbuild: Building tlbuild: Build one engine