Please read all of the following instructions before you begin
building mmh.
-You should check the MACHINES file to see if there are any specific
-build instructions for your operating system. To build mmh, you will
-need an ANSI C compiler such as gcc.
+Mmh can be built and installed on POSIX-compliant systems, using
+an ANSI C compiler. (Check out docs/MACHINES for shortcomings of
+operating systems.)
-0) If you have obtained mmh by checking it out of git, you will
- need to run the GNU autotools to regenerate some files.
- (If your directory already contains a file 'config.h.in'
+0) If you have obtained mmh by checking it out of the version control
+ system, you will need to run the GNU autotools to regenerate some
+ files. (If your directory already contains a file 'config.h.in'
then this has already been done and you do not need to do it.)
You can regenerate the files by running the command
./autogen.sh
- (Note that if you're doing mmh development, you should look at
- docs/README.developers, since there is other developer-friendly
- advice there as well.)
+ (If you're doing mmh development, you should look at
+ docs/README.developers for related information.)
-1) From the top-level source directory, run the command
+1) From the top-level source directory, run the command:
- ./configure [options]
+ ./configure [options]
- This will check the configuration of your OS, and create the
- include file config.h, as well as the various Makefiles.
+ This will check the configuration of your OS, as well as generate
+ the various Makefiles.
- The configure script accepts various options. The options of
- most interest are listed in a section below. To see the list
- of all available options, you can run
+ The configure script accepts various options. The options of
+ most interest are listed in a section below. To see the list
+ of all available options, you can run:
- ./configure --help
+ ./configure --help
-2) Look through the user configuration section at the beginning
- of the generated include file `config.h'. You may
- want to customize some #defines for your environment.
+2) make
-3) make
+ For less terminal output, use: make -s
-4) make install
+3) make install
- Note that if you have [n]mh files in your install directories with
+ Note that if you have mmh files in the target directories with
the same names as the files being installed, the old ones will get
- overwritten without any warning. The only directory this isn't
+ overwritten without any warning. The only directory this isn't
true for, is the `etc' directory -- in that directory, the distributed
files are installed with a `.dist' suffix if they differ from the
- existing file. Watch for information messages while make is processing
+ existing file. Watch for information messages while make is processing
that directory to see if you need to merge changes.
-5) Edit the file `mhn.defaults' (installed in the mmh `etc' directory).
+4) You may edit the file `mhn.defaults' in mmh's `etc' directory.
+
This file contains the default profile entries for the mmh commands
- mhlist/mhstore/mhshow and is created by the script `mhn.defaults.sh'.
- This script will search a generic path (essentially your $PATH) for
- programs to handle various content types (for example, xv to display
- images). You can re-run this script and give it a more tailored
- path. You may want to re-run this script later if you install new
- programs to display content. An example of this is:
+ mhlist/mhstore/show. The syntax of this file is described in section
+ 9.4 of the book "MH & xmh: Email for Users and Programmers", 3rd edition,
+ by Jerry Peek, on the Internet at
+ <http://rand-mh.sourceforge.net/book/mh/confmhn.html>.
+ In most cases you can skip this step.
+
+5) Add the bindir to your PATH variable.
- % cd support/general
- % ./mhn.defaults.sh /usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/ucb > mhn.defaults
+ If you haven't changed any paths, then the bindir is
+ `/usr/local/mmh/bin'. Adjust your PATH in ~/.profile, ~/.kshrc,
+ ~/.bashrc, or a similar file.
- and then move `mhn.defaults' into the mmh `etc' directory.
+ Have a look at mmhwrap(1), which allows you to access mmh tools
+ conveniently without changing the PATH variable.
- The `mhn.defaults.sh' script only searches for a simple set of programs.
- If you have specialized programs to handle various types, you will need
- to edit the `mhn.defaults' file manually. The syntax of this file is
- described in section 9.4 of the book "MH & xmh: Email for Users and
- Programmers", 3rd edition, by Jerry Peek, on the Internet at
- <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~mh/book/mh/confmhn.htm>.
-----------------------------------------------
Compiler options, or using a different compiler
-----------------------------------------------
-By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found. You can use a
+By default, configure will use the "gcc" compiler if found. You can use a
different compiler, or add unusual options for compiling or linking that
the "configure" script does not know about, by either editing the user
configuration section of the top level Makefile (after running configure)
-or giving "configure" initial values for these variables by setting them
-in the environment. Using a Bourne-compatible shell (such as sh,ksh,zsh),
-
-you can do that on the command line like this:
- CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix ./configure
-
+or giving "configure" initial values for these in its command line or in
+its environment. For example:
+
+ ./configure CC=c89 CFLAGS=-O2 LIBS=-lposix
+
Or on systems that have the "env" program, you can do it like this:
env CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include LDFLAGS=-s ./configure
+If you want to add to, not replace, compile flags, you can use OURDEFS:
+ ./configure OURDEFS='-Wextra -Wno-sign-compare'
+
+---------------------------------
+Using a different build directory
+---------------------------------
+You can compile mmh in a different directory from the one containing
+the source code. Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
+architecture at the same time. To do this, you must use a version of
+"make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make". Change
+to the directory where you want the object files and executables to go
+and run the "configure" script. "configure" automatically checks for
+the source code in the directory that "configure" is in. For example,
+
+ cd /usr/local/src/mmh # source directory
+ make clean
+ cd /usr/local/solaris/mmh # build directory
+ /usr/local/src/mmh/configure
+ make
+
----------------------------------------
Building mmh on additional architectures
----------------------------------------
To build mmh on additional architectures, you can do a "make distclean".
This should restore the mmh source distribution back to its original
-state. You can then configure mmh as above on other architectures in
-which you wish to build mmh. Or alternatively, you can use a different
+state. You can then configure mmh as above on other architectures in
+which you wish to build mmh. Or alternatively, you can use a different
build directory for each architecture.
-
----------------------------------
-Using a different build directory
----------------------------------
-You can compile the mmh in a different directory from the one containing
-the source code. Doing so allows you to compile it on more than one
-architecture at the same time. To do this, you must use a version of
-"make" that supports the "VPATH" variable, such as GNU "make". "cd" to
-the directory where you want the object files and executables to go and
-run the "configure" script. "configure" automatically checks for the
-source code in the directory that "configure" is in. For example,
-
- cd /usr/local/solaris/mmh
- /usr/local/src/mmh-1.0/configure
- make
---------------------
Options for configure
---------------------
--prefix=DIR (DEFAULT is /usr/local/mmh)
This will change the base prefix for the installation location
- for the various parts of mmh. Unless overridden, mmh is installed
+ for the various parts of mmh. Unless overridden, mmh is installed
in ${prefix}/bin, ${prefix}/etc, ${prefix}/lib, ${prefix}/man.
--bindir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/bin)
mmh's binaries (show, inc, comp, ...) are installed here.
+ You need to have this directory in your PATH variable.
--libdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/lib)
- mmh's support binaries (spost, slocal, mhl, ...) are installed here.
+ mmh's test tools (ap, dp, mhtest, ...) are installed here.
+ They are seldom useful to normal users.
--sysconfdir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/etc)
- mmh's config files (mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
+ mmh's global config files (mhn.defaults, ...) are installed here.
--mandir=DIR (DEFAULT is ${prefix}/man)
mmh's man pages are installed here.
--enable-debug
- Enable debugging support.
-
---enable-mhe (DEFAULT)
- Add support for the Emacs front-end `mhe'.
+ Add debugging symbols to the binaries.
--with-locking=LOCKTYPE (DEFAULT is dot)
- Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc" or
- "msgchk" a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot",
- "fcntl", "flock", and "lockf". Of the four, dot-locking
- requires no special kernel or filesystem support, and simply
- creates a file called "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is
- locked.
+ Specify the locking mechanism when attempting to "inc"
+ a local mail spool. Valid options are "dot", "fcntl", "flock",
+ and "lockf".
+
+ Of the four, dot-locking requires no special kernel
+ or filesystem support, and simply creates a file called
+ "FILE.lock" to indicate that "FILE" is locked.
+ If LOCKDIR is specified, lock files will be created in that
+ directory. Otherwise, lock files will be created in the
+ directory where the file being locked resides.
+
+ To configure nmh for kernel locking, use one of the `flock',
+ `lockf' or `fcntl' values, each using the equally named
+ system call to perform the kernel-level locking.
In order to be effective, you should contact the site
administrator to find out what locking mechanisms other
is not world- or user-writeable, and thus a lock file cannot
be created.
---with-ndbm=LIB (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
---with-ndbmheader=HEADER (DEFAULT is to autodetect)
- Specify the header file (eg ndbm.h) and library (eg ndbm) to use
- to compile against the ndbm database library. By default, configure
- will try various possibilities until it finds one that works; this
- option only needs to be specified if the autodetection fails or
- makes the wrong choice.
-
- If either of these options is given then the other must also be
- specified.
+--with-lockdir=DIR
+ If you have defined "dot" locking, then the default is to
+ place the lock files in the same directory as the file that
+ is to be locked. Alternately, if you use this option, you can
+ specify that all lock files go in the specified directory.
+ Don't define this unless you know you need it.
---
-markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>
-and the nmh team <nmh-workers@nongnu.org>
+ This option is only relevant if "dot" locking is used.
+ In the other cases, it is ignored.
projects / mmh / blobdiff