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<div class="refentry">
<a name="glib-building"></a><div class="titlepage"></div>
<div class="refnamediv"><table width="100%"><tr>
<td valign="top">
<h2><span class="refentrytitle">Compiling the GLib package</span></h2>
<p>Compiling the GLib Package — How to compile GLib itself</p>
</td>
<td class="gallery_image" valign="top" align="right"></td>
</tr></table></div>
<div class="refsect1">
<a name="building"></a><h2>Building the Library on UNIX</h2>
<p>
On UNIX, GLib uses the standard GNU build system,
using <span class="application">autoconf</span> for package
configuration and resolving portability issues,
<span class="application">automake</span> for building makefiles
that comply with the GNU Coding Standards, and
<span class="application">libtool</span> for building shared
libraries on multiple platforms. The normal sequence for
compiling and installing the GLib library is thus:
</p>
<div class="literallayout"><p><br>
<strong class="userinput"><code>./configure</code></strong><br>
<strong class="userinput"><code>make</code></strong><br>
<strong class="userinput"><code>make install</code></strong><br>
</p></div>
<p>
</p>
<p>
The standard options provided by <span class="application">GNU
autoconf</span> may be passed to the
<span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script. Please see the
<span class="application">autoconf</span> documentation or run
<span class="command"><strong>./configure --help</strong></span> for information about
the standard options.
</p>
<p>
GLib is compiled with
<a class="ulink" href="https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Optimize-Options.html#index-fstrict-aliasing" target="_top">strict aliasing</a>
disabled. It is strongly recommended that this is not re-enabled by
overriding the compiler flags, as GLib has not been tested with strict
aliasing and cannot be guaranteed to work.
</p>
<p>
The GTK+ documentation contains
<a class="ulink" href="https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/gtk-building.html" target="_top">further details</a>
about the build process and ways to influence it.
</p>
</div>
<div class="refsect1">
<a name="dependencies"></a><h2>Dependencies</h2>
<p>
Before you can compile the GLib library, you need to have
various other tools and libraries installed on your system.
If you are building from a release archive, you will need
<a class="ulink" href="https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GLib/CompilerRequirements" target="_top">a compliant C toolchain</a>,
GNU Make, and <span class="application">pkg-config</span>;
if you are building directly from a Git repository clone
of GLib, you will also need the GNU Autotools mentioned
above.
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
<li class="listitem"><p>
<a class="ulink" href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/pkg-config/" target="_top">pkg-config</a>
is a tool for tracking the compilation flags needed for
libraries that are used by the GLib library. (For each
library, a small <code class="literal">.pc</code> text file is
installed in a standard location that contains the compilation
flags needed for that library along with version number
information).
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
The GLib Makefiles make use of several features specific to
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.gnu.org/software/make" target="_top">GNU
make</a>, and will not build correctly with other
versions of <span class="command"><strong>make</strong></span>. You will need to
install it if you don't already have it on your system. (It
may be called <span class="command"><strong>gmake</strong></span> rather than
<span class="command"><strong>make</strong></span>.)
</p></li>
</ul></div>
<p>
A UNIX build of GLib requires that the system implements at
least the original 1990 version of POSIX. Beyond this, it
depends on a number of other libraries.
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
<li class="listitem">
<p>
The <a class="ulink" href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/" target="_top">GNU
libiconv library</a> is needed to build GLib if your
system doesn't have the <code class="function">iconv()</code>
function for doing conversion between character
encodings. Most modern systems should have
<code class="function">iconv()</code>, however many older systems lack
an <code class="function">iconv()</code> implementation. On such systems,
you must install the libiconv library. This can be found at:
<a class="ulink" href="http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv" target="_top">http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv</a>.
</p>
<p>
If your system has an <code class="function">iconv()</code> implementation but
you want to use libiconv instead, you can pass the
<code class="option">--with-libiconv</code> option to configure. This forces
libiconv to be used.
</p>
<p>
Note that if you have libiconv installed in your default include
search path (for instance, in <code class="filename">/usr/local/</code>), but
don't enable it, you will get an error while compiling GLib because
the <code class="filename">iconv.h</code> that libiconv installs hides the
system iconv.
</p>
<p>
If you are using the native iconv implementation on Solaris
instead of libiconv, you'll need to make sure that you have
the converters between locale encodings and UTF-8 installed.
At a minimum you'll need the SUNWuiu8 package. You probably
should also install the SUNWciu8, SUNWhiu8, SUNWjiu8, and
SUNWkiu8 packages.
</p>
<p>
The native iconv on Compaq Tru64 doesn't contain support for
UTF-8, so you'll need to use GNU libiconv instead. (When
using GNU libiconv for GLib, you'll need to use GNU libiconv
for GNU gettext as well.) This probably applies to related
operating systems as well.
</p>
</li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
The libintl library from the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext" target="_top">GNU gettext
package</a> is needed if your system doesn't have the
<code class="function">gettext()</code> functionality for handling
message translation databases.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
A thread implementation is needed. The thread support in GLib
can be based upon POSIX threads or win32 threads.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
GRegex uses the <a class="ulink" href="http://www.pcre.org/" target="_top">PCRE library</a>
for regular expression matching. The default is to use the system
version of PCRE, to reduce the chances of security fixes going out
of sync. GLib additionally provides an internal copy of PCRE in case
the system version is too old, or does not support UTF-8; the internal
copy is patched to use GLib for memory management and to share the
same Unicode tables.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
The optional extended attribute support in GIO requires the
<code class="function">getxattr()</code> family of functions that may be
provided by the C library or by the standalone libattr library. To
build GLib without extended attribute support, use the
<code class="option">--disable-xattr</code> option.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
The optional SELinux support in GIO requires libselinux.
To build GLib without SELinux support, use the
<code class="option">--disable-selinux</code> option.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
The optional support for DTrace requires the
<code class="filename">sys/sdt.h</code> header, which is provided
by SystemTap on Linux. To build GLib without DTrace, use
the <code class="option">--disable-dtrace</code> configure option.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
The optional support for
<a class="ulink" href="http://sourceware.org/systemtap/" target="_top">SystemTap</a>
can be disabled with the <code class="option">--disable-systemtap</code>
configure option. Additionally, you can control the location
where GLib installs the SystemTap probes, using the
<code class="option">--with-tapset-install-dir=DIR</code> configure option.
</p></li>
</ul></div>
</div>
<div class="refsect1">
<a name="extra-configuration-options"></a><h2>Extra Configuration Options</h2>
<p>
In addition to the normal options, the
<span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script in the GLib
library supports these additional arguments:
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--enable-debug</code>. </b>
Turns on various amounts of debugging support. Setting this to 'no'
disables <code class="function">g_assert()</code>, <code class="function">g_return_if_fail()</code>,
<code class="function">g_return_val_if_fail()</code> and all cast checks
between different object types. Setting it to 'minimum' disables
only cast checks. Setting it to 'yes' enables <a class="link" href="glib-running.html#G-DEBUG:CAPS" title="G_DEBUG">runtime debugging</a>.
The default is 'minimum' for stable releases, and 'yes' for development
snapshots. Note that 'no' is fast, but dangerous as it tends to destabilize
even mostly bug-free software by changing the effect of many bugs
from simple warnings into fatal crashes. Thus
<code class="option">--enable-debug=no</code> should <span class="emphasis"><em>not</em></span>
be used for stable releases of GLib.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--disable-gc-friendly</code> and
<code class="option">--enable-gc-friendly</code>. </b>
By default, and with <code class="option">--disable-gc-friendly</code>
as well, GLib does not clear the memory for certain objects before
they are freed. For example, GLib may decide to recycle GList nodes
by putting them in a free list. However, memory profiling and debugging
tools like <a class="ulink" href="http://www.valgrind.org" target="_top">Valgrind</a> work
better if an application does not keep dangling pointers to freed
memory (even though these pointers are no longer dereferenced), or
invalid pointers inside uninitialized memory.
The <code class="option">--enable-gc-friendly</code> option makes GLib
clear memory in these situations:
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
<li class="listitem"><p>
When shrinking a GArray, GLib will clear the memory no longer
available in the array: shrink an array from 10 bytes to 7, and
the last 3 bytes will be cleared. This includes removals of single
and multiple elements.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
When growing a GArray, GLib will clear the new chunk of memory.
Grow an array from 7 bytes to 10 bytes, and the last 3 bytes will
be cleared.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
The above applies to GPtrArray as well.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
When freeing a node from a GHashTable, GLib will first clear
the node, which used to have pointers to the key and the value
stored at that node.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
When destroying or removing a GTree node, GLib will clear the node,
which used to have pointers to the node's value, and the left and
right subnodes.
</p></li>
</ul></div>
<p>
Since clearing the memory has a cost,
<code class="option">--disable-gc-friendly</code> is the default.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--disable-mem-pools</code> and
<code class="option">--enable-mem-pools</code>. </b>
Many small chunks of memory are often allocated via collective pools
in GLib and are cached after release to speed up reallocations.
For sparse memory systems this behaviour is often inferior, so
memory pools can be disabled to avoid excessive caching and force
atomic maintenance of chunks through the <code class="function">g_malloc()</code>
and <code class="function">g_free()</code> functions. Code currently affected by
this:
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
<li class="listitem"><p>
<span class="structname">GMemChunk</span>s become basically non-effective
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
<span class="structname">GSignal</span> disables all caching
(potentially very slow)
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
<span class="structname">GType</span> doesn't honour the
<span class="structname">GTypeInfo</span>
<em class="structfield"><code>n_preallocs</code></em> field anymore
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
the <span class="structname">GBSearchArray</span> flag
<code class="literal">G_BSEARCH_ALIGN_POWER2</code> becomes non-functional
</p></li>
</ul></div>
<p>
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--with-threads</code>. </b>
Specify a thread implementation to use. Available options are
'posix' or 'win32'. Normally, <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span>
should be able to work out the system threads API on its own.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--with-pcre</code>. </b>
Specify whether to use the internal or the system-supplied
PCRE library.
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
<li class="listitem"><p>
'internal' means that GRegex will be compiled to use
the internal PCRE library.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
'system' means that GRegex will be compiled to use
the system-supplied PCRE library; this is the default
setting.
</p></li>
</ul></div>
<p>
Using the internal PCRE is the preferred solution if:
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
<li class="listitem"><p>
your system has strict resource constraints; the system-supplied
PCRE has a separated copy of the tables used for Unicode
handling, whereas the internal copy shares the Unicode tables
used by GLib.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
your system has PCRE built without some needed features,
such as UTF-8 and Unicode support.
</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>
you are planning to use both GRegex and PCRE API at the same
time, either directly or indirectly through a dependency; PCRE
uses some global variables for memory management and
other features, and if both GLib and PCRE try to access them
at the same time, this could lead to undefined behavior.
</p></li>
</ul></div>
<p>
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--disable-included-printf</code> and
<code class="option">--enable-included-printf</code>. </b>
By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will try
to auto-detect whether the C library provides a suitable set
of <code class="function">printf()</code> functions. In detail,
<span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> checks that the semantics of
<code class="function">snprintf()</code> are as specified by C99
and that positional parameters as specified in the Single Unix
Specification are supported. If this not the case, GLib will
include an implementation of the <code class="function">printf()</code>
family.
These options can be used to explicitly control whether
an implementation of the <code class="function">printf()</code> family
should be included or not.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--disable-Bsymbolic</code> and
<code class="option">--enable-Bsymbolic</code>. </b>
By default, GLib uses the <code class="option">-Bsymbolic-functions</code>
linker flag to avoid intra-library PLT jumps. A side-effect
of this is that it is no longer possible to override
internal uses of GLib functions with
<code class="envar">LD_PRELOAD</code>. Therefore, it may make
sense to turn this feature off in some situations.
The <code class="option">--disable-Bsymbolic</code> option allows
to do that.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--disable-gtk-doc</code> and
<code class="option">--enable-gtk-doc</code>. </b>
By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will try
to auto-detect whether the
<span class="application">gtk-doc</span> package is installed.
If it is, then it will use it to extract and build the
documentation for the GLib library. These options
can be used to explicitly control whether
<span class="application">gtk-doc</span> should be
used or not. If it is not used, the distributed,
pre-generated HTML files will be installed instead of
building them on your machine.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--disable-man</code> and
<code class="option">--enable-man</code>. </b>
By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will try
to auto-detect whether <span class="application">xsltproc</span>
and the necessary Docbook stylesheets are installed.
If they are, then it will use them to rebuild the included
man pages from the XML sources. These options can be used
to explicitly control whether man pages should be rebuilt
used or not. The distribution includes pre-generated man
pages.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--disable-xattr</code> and
<code class="option">--enable-xattr</code>. </b>
By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will try
to auto-detect whether the <code class="function">getxattr()</code>
family of functions is available. If it is, then extended
attribute support will be included in GIO. These options can
be used to explicitly control whether extended attribute
support should be included or not. <code class="function">getxattr()</code>
and friends can be provided by glibc or by the standalone
libattr library.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--disable-selinux</code> and
<code class="option">--enable-selinux</code>. </b>
By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will
auto-detect if libselinux is available and include
SELinux support in GIO if it is. These options can be
used to explicitly control whether SELinux support should
be included.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--disable-dtrace</code> and
<code class="option">--enable-dtrace</code>. </b>
By default the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will
detect if DTrace support is available, and use it.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--disable-systemtap</code> and
<code class="option">--enable-systemtap</code>. </b>
This option requires DTrace support. If it is available, then
the <span class="command"><strong>configure</strong></span> script will also check for
the presence of SystemTap.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--enable-coverage</code> and
<code class="option">--disable-coverage</code>. </b>
Enable the generation of coverage reports for the GLib tests.
This requires the lcov frontend to gcov from the
<a class="ulink" href="http://ltp.sourceforge.net" target="_top">Linux Test Project</a>.
To generate a coverage report, use the lcov make target. The
report is placed in the <code class="filename">glib-lcov</code> directory.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--with-runtime-libdir=RELPATH</code>. </b>
Allows specifying a relative path to where to install the runtime
libraries (meaning library files used for running, not developing,
GLib applications). This can be used in operating system setups where
programs using GLib needs to run before e.g. <code class="filename">/usr</code>
is mounted.
For example, if <code class="varname">LIBDIR</code> is <code class="filename">/usr/lib</code> and
<code class="filename">../../lib</code> is passed to
<code class="option">--with-runtime-libdir</code> then the
runtime libraries are installed into <code class="filename">/lib</code> rather
than <code class="filename">/usr/lib</code>.
</p>
<p><b><code class="option">--with-python=PATH</code>. </b>
Allows specifying the Python interpreter to use, either as an absolute path,
or as a program name. GLib can be built with Python 2 (at least version 2.7)
or, preferably, with Python 3.
</p>
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