Build(libexplain)                                            Build(libexplain)



NAME
        How to build libexplain

SPACE REQUIREMENTS
        You will need about 6MB to unpack and build the libexplain package.
        Your milage may vary.

BEFORE YOU START
        There are a few pieces of software you may want to fetch and install
        before you proceed with your installation of libexplain

        libcap  Linux needs libcap, for access to capabilities.
                ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/security/linux-privs/kernel-2.2/

        lsof
                For systems with inadequate or non-existent /proc facilities,
                and that includes *BSD and MacOS X, the lsof(1) program is
                needed to obtain supplementary information about open file
                descriptors.  However, if lsof(1) is not supported on your
                operating system, libexplain will still work, but some useful
                information (such as translating file descriptors into the
                name of the open file) will be absent from error explanations.

                ftp://lsof.itap.purdue.edu/pub/tools/unix/lsof/
                http://people.freebsd.org/~abe/

                You must have lsof(1) installed on *BSD and Solaris, otherwise
                the test suite will generate staggering numbers of false
                negatives.  It will produce less informative error messages,
                too.

                Supported systems include: Free BSD, HP/UX, Linux, Mac OS X,
                NetBSD, Open BSD, Solaris, and several others.

        GNU libtool
                The libtool program is used to build shared libraries.  It
                understands the neccesary, weird and wonderful compiler and
                linker tricks on many weird and wonderful systems.
                http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/

        bison   The bison program is a general-purpose parser generator that
                converts a grammar description for an LALR(1) context-free
                grammar into a C program to parse that grammar.
                http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/

        GNU Groff
                The documentation for the libexplain package was prepared
                using the GNU Groff package (version 1.14 or later).  This
                distribution includes full documentation, which may be
                processed into PostScript or DVI files at install time - if
                GNU Groff has been installed.

        GCC     You may also want to consider fetching and installing the GNU
                C Compiler if you have not done so already.  This is not
                essential.  libexplain was developed using the GNU C compiler,
                and the GNU C libraries.

        The GNU FTP archives may be found at ftp.gnu.org, and are mirrored
        around the world.

SITE CONFIGURATION
        The libexplain package is configured using the configure program
        included in this distribution.

        The configure shell script attempts to guess correct values for
        various system-dependent variables used during compilation, and
        creates the Makefile and libexplain/config.h files.  It also creates a
        shell script config.status that you can run in the future to recreate
        the current configuration.

        Normally, you just cd to the directory containing libexplain's source
        code and then type
                $ ./configure --prefix=/usr
                ...lots of output...
                $
        If you're using csh on an old version of System V, you might need to
        type
                % sh configure --prefix=/usr
                ...lots of output...
                %
        instead, to prevent csh from trying to execute configure itself.

        Running configure takes a minute or two.  While it is running, it
        prints some messages that tell what it is doing.  If you don't want to
        see the messages, run configure using the quiet option; for example,
                $ ./configure --prefix=/usr --quiet
                $

        To compile the libexplain package in a different directory from the
        one containing the source code, 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.  The configure script automatically checks for the
        source code in the directory that configure is in and in .IR .. (the
        parent directory).  If for some reason configure is not in the source
        code directory that you are configuring, then it will report that it
        can't find the source code.  In that case, run configure with the
        option --srcdir=DIR, where DIR is the directory that contains the
        source code.

        By default, configure will arrange for the make install command to
        install the libexplain package's files in /usr/local/bin,
        /usr/local/lib, /usr/local/include, and /usr/local/man.  There are
        options which allow you to control the placement of these files.

        --prefix=PATH
                This specifies the path prefix to be used in the installation.
                Defaults to /usr/local unless otherwise specified.

        --exec-prefix=PATH
                You can specify separate installation prefixes for
                architecture-specific files files.  Defaults to ${prefix}
                unless otherwise specified.

        --bindir=PATH
                This directory contains executable programs.  On a network,
                this directory may be shared between machines with identical
                hardware and operating systems; it may be mounted read-only.
                Defaults to ${exec_prefix}/bin unless otherwise specified.

        --mandir=PATH
                This directory contains the on-line manual entries.  On a
                network, this directory may be shared between all machines; it
                may be mounted read-only.  Defaults to ${prefix}/man unless
                otherwise specified.

        configure ignores most other arguments that you give it; use the
        --help option for a complete list.

        On systems that require unusual options for compilation or linking
        that the libexplain package's configure script does not know about,
        you can give configure initial values for variables by setting them in
        the environment.  In Bourne-compatible shells, you can do that on the
        command line like this:
                $ CC='gcc -ansi' LIBS=-lposix ./configure
                ...lots of output...
                $
        Here are the make variables that you might want to override with
        environment variables when running configure.

        Variable: CC
                C compiler program.  The default is gcc.

        Variable: CPPFLAGS
                Preprocessor flags, commonly defines and include search paths.
                Defaults to empty.  It is common to use
                CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include to access other installed
                packages.

        Variable: INSTALL
                Program to use to install files.  The default is install(1) if
                you have it, cp(1) otherwise.

        Variable: LIBS
                Libraries to link with, in the form -lfoo -lbar.  The
                configure script will append to this, rather than replace it.
                It is common to use LIBS=-L/usr/local/lib to access other
                installed packages.

        If you need to do unusual things to compile the package, the author
        encourages you to figure out how configure could check whether to do
        them, and mail diffs or instructions to the author so that they can be
        included in the next release.

BUILDING LIBEXPLAIN
        All you should need to do is use the
                $ make
                ...lots of output...
                $
        command and wait.  This can take a long time, as there are a few
        thousand files to be compiled.

        You can remove the program binaries and object files from the source
        directory by using the
                $ make clean
                ...lots of output...
                $
        command.  To remove all of the above files, and also remove the
        Makefile and libexplain/config.h and config.status files, use the
                $ make distclean
                ...lots of output...
                $
        command.

        The file etc/configure.ac is used to create configure by a GNU program
        called autoconf.  You only need to know this if you want to regenerate
        configure using a newer version of autoconf.

TESTING LIBEXPLAIN
        The libexplain package comes with a test suite.  To run this test
        suite, use the command
                $ make sure
                ...lots of output...
                Passed All Tests
                $

        The tests take a fraction of a second each, with most very fast, and a
        couple very slow, but it varies greatly depending on your CPU.

        If all went well, the message
                Passed All Tests
        should appear at the end of the make.

   Sources of False Negatives
        There are a number of factors that can cause tests to fail
        unnecessarily.

        Root    You will get false negatives if you run the tests as root.

        Architecture
                Some errors move around depending on architecture (sparc vs
                x86 vs s390, etc).  Some even move around due to different
                memory layout for 32-bit vs 64-bit, for the same processor
                family.  For example, when testing EFAULT explanations.

        strerror
                Different systems have different strerror(3) implementations
                (the numbers vary, the texts vary, the existence varies, etc).
                This can even be incompatible across Linux architectures when
                ABI compatibility was the goal, e.g. sparc vs i386.

        ioctl   There are (at least) three inconsistent implementations of
                ioctl request macros, all incompatible, depending on Unix
                vendor.  They also vary on Linux, depending on architecture,
                for ABI compatibility reasons.

        Environment
                Some tests are difficult because the build-and-test
                environment can vary widely.  Sometimes it's a chroot,
                sometimes it's a VM, sometimes it's fakeroot, sometimes it
                really is running as root.  All these affect the ability of
                the library to probe the system looking for the proximal cause
                of the error, e.g. ENOSPC or EROFS.  This often results in 2
                or 4 or 8 explanations of an error, depending on what the
                library finds, e.g. existence of useful information in the
                mount table, or not.

        Mount Table
                If you run the tests in a chroot jail build environment, maybe
                with bind mounts for the file systems, it is necessary to make
                sure /etc/mtab (or equivalent) has sensable contents,
                otherwise some of the path resolution tests will return false
                negatives.

        /proc   If your system has a completely inadequate /proc
                implementation (including, but not limited to: *BSD, Mac OS X,
                and Solaris) or no /proc at all, and you have not installed
                the lsof(1) tool, then large numbers of tests will return
                false negatives.

        As these problem have occured, many of the tests have been enhanced to
        cope, but not all false negative situations have yet been discovered.

INSTALLING LIBEXPLAIN
        As explained in the SITE CONFIGURATION section, above, the libexplain
        package is installed under the /usr/local tree by default.  Use the
        --prefix=PATH option to configure if you want some other path.  More
        specific installation locations are assignable, use the --help option
        to configure for details.

        All that is required to install the libexplain package is to use the
                # make install
                ...lots of output...
                #
        command.  Control of the directories used may be found in the first
        few lines of the Makefile file and the other files written by the
        configure script; it is best to reconfigure using the configure
        script, rather than attempting to do this by hand.

        Note: if you are doing a manual install (as opposed to a package
        build) you will also need to run the
                # ldconfig
                #
        command.  This updates where the system thinks all the shared
        libraries are.  And since we just installed one, this is a good idea.

GETTING HELP
        If you need assistance with the libexplain package, please do not
        hesitate to contact the author at
                Peter Miller <pmiller@opensource.org.au>
        Any and all feedback is welcome.

        When reporting problems, please include the version number given by
        the
                $ explain -version
                explain version 0.D049
                ...warranty disclaimer...
                $
        command.  Please do not send this example; run the program for the
        exact version number.

COPYRIGHT
        libexplain version 0
        Copyright (C) 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Peter Miller

        The libexplain package is distributed in the hope that it will be
        useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
        MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
        Lesser General Public License for more details.

        It should be in the LICENSE file included with this distribution.

AUTHOR
        Peter Miller   E-Mail:   pmiller@opensource.org.au
        /\/\*             WWW:   http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/



Reference Manual                  libexplain                 Build(libexplain)
