3 FAQ - GNU LilyPond FAQs
7 Some questions that have been answered before.
11 Q: I get all kinds of errors while compiling parser.cc
13 A: LilyPond uses features of bison version 1.25. Please confirm that
14 you are using a version 1.25 or better. Don't forget to do "make
15 clean" after installing it
17 If the problem persists, then please mail me.
19 Q: Some of your neat scripts fail, what directories do you use:
24 lilypond # the directory as unpacked from the tarball
25 releases # directory for .tar.gz releases
26 patches # directory for patches between different releases
28 ~/something/lilypond/bin is in the PATH, and contains symlinks to the
31 =head2 Language: mudela
33 Q: Why can't you type C<#c> in stead of C<cis> ?
35 A: We think that C<#c> looks as if you are entering the symbols to
36 print (which you are not; remember, you're entering the musical
39 We're not sure on leaving out this feature. If you think this is a
40 good idea, please let us know.
42 Be warned we will I<not> allow you to leave out the C<#> if the note
43 already has an accidental. We won't allow
57 to make a few chords, but why do I have to type
60 < { a~ e } { c ~ g } >
66 to generate ties between the chords?
74 < { a } { c } > < { e } { g } >
76 Ties have to be confined to `voices', and the a and the e are in
77 different {} blocks, so they are in different voices. You should view
78 the desired construct as a "generalised chord" (two voices stacked
79 vertically). It might help you visualise this by using the following
86 Q: and where do the beams come into this picture?
88 A: Beams are voicegroup-wide, and may be entered in any part of the
91 < { [a ~ e] } { c ~ g } >
92 < { [a ~ e } { c ~ g] } >
93 < { [a ~ e] } { [c ~ g] } >
95 These all give the same result.
97 Q: Why are [] around the notes, and () inbetween?
99 A: [] designate beams, a note can only be in one beam at the same
100 time. () is a slur, which connects notes. You need to be able to
105 Q: Why shouldn't I put all commands (\clef, \meter) inside the music?
107 A: You should do what you like, but at some time we will enable
108 quoting of music ("Stichnoten"). Besides if you are going to type an
109 orchestral score, then you'd probably want to enter most of the meter,
110 repeat commands only once.
112 Q: I want to insert some TeX commands
114 A: You shouldn't: it's against LilyPond philosophy to have typesetting
115 commands in the mudela source. Moreover, this would be difficult. The
116 manner in which Request (the basic building blocks of mudela) are
117 translated into printable items is complex: it is not always possible
118 to associate one Request with one Item or Spanner.
120 As a further notice, we want to move away from TeX (and perhaps
121 output PostScript or render to an X window too)
125 Q: How do I change the TeX layout?
127 A: See lilyponddefs.tex, it has some comments.
129 Q: How do I learn the C++ code?
131 A: The entry point is in main(). Good luck. :-)
133 Seriously, read, reread and reread lilygut and CodingStyle, and
136 Anywhere? Well, most of the comment doco are in the header files, so
137 your best bet would be C<less lily/include/*.hh>. Some of the most
138 important data-structures are to be found in:
155 Q: Could you implement feature XXXX? It is really easy, just extend
156 the syntax to allow YYYY!
158 A: If it is reasonable, I'll add XXXX to the TODO list. In general
159 finding a cute syntax (such as YYYY) isn't very hard. The complicated
160 issue how to adapt the internals to do XXXX. The parser is really a
161 simple front end to the complicated internals.
163 Q: Why do I need g++ >= 2.7?
165 A: By using g++, GNU LilyPond is portable to all platforms which support
166 g++ (there are quite a few). Not having to support other compilers
167 saves us a I<lot> of trouble. GNU LilyPond and FlowerLib use:
177 64 bit integral type long long
185 operator <?, operator >?
193 class Rational (libg++)
201 can't load library 'libflower.so'
203 A: You are using the dynamically compiled Flower library. Please set
204 LD_LIBRARY_PATH to a directory containing F<libflower.so>
208 Q: I want a DOS/NT/W95 port.
210 A.0: Reconsider. Try Linux. It's fun!
212 A.1: Currently (patchlevel 27), GNU LilyPond (and flowerLib) compiles, links
213 and runs on windhoos-nt, using the cygnus gnu port (release b17.1).
214 I (JCN) only had to make a minor workaround for missing library calls.
215 Have a look at http://www.cygnus.com/gnu-win32. To make GNU LilyPond type
216 C<make $OSTYPE>. (I am not promising to maintain this platform, it is just
217 that when having to use doze, i-m sometimes too lazy to reboot.)
219 A.2: I haven't had time to find a GCC crosscompiler (I<with> g++ and
220 libg++, mind you) to DOS/win (in rpm, please :).
223 Q: I-m dozed enough to run the (sometimes bit stale) .exe-s you distribute.
224 Why do i need cygwin.dll?
226 A: It-s all in this cut-n-paste:
228 Minimalist GNU-Win32 Readme
231 Colin Peters <colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp>
235 0.3 Fixes and Improvements
238 In the "coming soon" category I have a version of the GNU Standard C++
239 library ported to Mingw32. This means you can use iostreams, complex
240 numbers and all those neat STL (Standard Template Library) things
241 without needing the Cygwin DLL. I hope to put this port up for
242 downloading soon (along with the source of course).
248 To add C++ Support to the above the following extra files are required:
250 In C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-
254 Note that this does not include support for the standard C++ libraries
255 (only the C run time libraries) or for iostreams. That support is still
256 only available with the Cygwin32 API.