1 Introduction ============== If you are installing this package as part of the GNUstep core packages, read the file GNUstep-HOWTO for more complete instructions on how to install the entire GNUstep package (including this library). GNUstep-HOWTO is located in the gnustep-make package or at This version of gnustep-base requires gnustep-make version 2.0.0 or higher. Other external libraries that you may need to install include: * ffi (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) * icu (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) * gnutls (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) * libxml2 (RECOMMENDED) * libxslt (OPTIONAL) * libavahi (RECOMMENDED for NSNetServices) * zlib (RECOMMENDED) * iconv (OPTIONAL, not needed if you have glibc) * openssl (OPTIONAL, not needed if you have gnutls) * libcurl (RECOMMENDED) * libdispatch (RECOMMENDED) If you are installing the GNUstep libraries individually, make sure you have installed the GNUstep Makefile package (gnustep-make) already, and you have sourced the makefile script: . $GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Library/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh See the GNUstep-HOWTO for more information. After installing this library you should install gnustep-gui if you are going to use graphical applications. When you configure this library, make sure you use the same configuration options as with gstep-make. Some additional options to configure are described below. Quick installation instructions: ./configure make make install To make and install the documentation: cd Documentation make make install 2 Configuration =============== Configuration is performed by running the 'configure' program at a shell prompt. You may want to use some of the optional arguments to the 'configure' program. Type 'configure --help' for a list of these. It is not likely that you will need to use the '--prefix' option, since gstep-base will automatically install in the directory specified by the 'GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT' environment variable (specified when you installed gnustep-make). Some configuration options for the base library need to be specified when configuring the gnustep-make package. In most cases, it is a good idea to specify the same configuration options when configuring both packages, just to make sure. Also make sure you've read the machine-specific instructions for your particular operating system and CPU. These instructions come with the GNUstep-HOWTO and are also located at the GNUstep web site at . 2.1 Reading Command-Line Arguments ---------------------------------- There are two features that change how GNUstep gets access to command-line arguments and environment variables (normally passed to the program in the 'main()' function. These features are '--enable-pass-arguments' and the '--enable-fake-main' option(s). The fake-main option _secretly_ renames the 'main()' function and substitutes it's own function which stores the command line arguments before calling the real main. The pass-arguments option absolves GNUstep of any effort to get the command-line arguments and instead forces the developer to insert the line [NSProcessInfo initializeWithArguments:argv count:argc environment:env]; in the 'main()' function of their program. Normally, the configure script will determine if a program can read process information directly from the system (for use by the class NSProcessInfo) and enable or disable the fake-main hack automatically, but if you find that configure is not doing this correctly, you can force the fake-main hack to be used, which will always work. Note that if the fake-main hack is enabled, you need to include the header file GSConfig.h in you main program - this is done by default if you include NSObject.h or Foundation.h. If you want to avoid the whole idea of the fake-main hack, you can use the pass-arguments option. In this case you will be forced to call the NSProcessInfo initializeWithArguments method to pass the program arguments to NSProcessInfo (This would be done automatically if you use the NSApplicationMain function in a gui application). 2.2 FFI Library --------------- GNUstep's NSInvocations and Distributed Objects code involves detailed manipulation of the stack and function calls using a library that implements a Foreign-Function Interface (FFI), such as the libffi library. Use of libffi is automatically enabled if the libffi library is found (and the same with ffcall, although libffi takes precedence), unless specifically disabled with '--disable-do'. 3 Compilation ============= To compile this library, type make. After this is complete, type make install (make sure you are the root user). Some additional options you can use with make are 'debug=yes' to make a debugging version of the library and 'shared=no' to make a static version of the library. See the gstep-make package for more information on these options. If you can't install gstep-base as root, be sure to edit the 'Tools/gdomap.h' file and uncomment the last line. Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.