nsect(NAME)

INSTALL - installing StepMake

nsect(DESCRIPTION)

This page documents installation and usage of StepMake

nsect(ABSTRACT)

verbinclude(BLURB.in)

To use StepMake with your package, you do something remotely like:
verb(
    tar xzf releases/stepmake-0.1.23
    cd package-x.x.x/		       # package to be StepMake-ised
    ./../stepmake-0.1.23/bin/stepmakeise.sh
)
You'll have to customize at least the files:
verb(
    ./VERSION .
    ./configure.in 
)
to your package's needs.  You might want to take a look at:
verb(
    ./make/Toplevel.make.in
    ./config.hh.in
    ./config.make.in
)

Also, you should put a Makefile in every subdirectory of your
package.  These makefiles generally are quite simple, e.g. this 
is a the makefile for an include directory of LilyPond:
verb(
    # lily/include/Makefile

    depth = ../..
    include $(depth)/make/Stepmake.make
)

it will identify all code(.h, .hh, ...) files and take care of distributing 
them.

There's a file(make/Template.make) that you can use as an example.
See also the Makefiles in the LilyPond or Yodl package.


Once included in your package, StepMake (or in fact, any 
StepMake-ised package) behaves as a normal subdirectory;
make commands such as 'make dist' recurse into the stepmake tree
(For a list of available targets, type code(make help) after
configuring).
Stepmake (and any changes made) will be distributed with the main
pacakage.  However, StepMake doesn't lose its independency, change
to the stepmake directory, and it'll behave as a main package.
You shouldn't version directory names of subpackages, otherwise
you'll see that package twice in each patch when you upgrade.

nsect(PREREQUISITES)

To use StepMake with a package you need:

itemize(
it()A GNU system: StepMake is known to work on these GNU systems: Linux
    (PPC, intel), FreeBSD, AIX, NeXTStep, IRIX, Digital Unix and Solaris.
    If you have the Cygnus WINDOWS32 port of the GNU utils, it will even
    work in Windows NT/95, but we don't promise to support it.
it()GNU make 
it()GNU autoconf
)

nsect(RECOMMENDED)

Although not strictly necessary, these are recommended to have.

itemize(
it()Python
it()Yodl.  All documentation will be in Yodl. (1.22.jcn3)
it()GNU find
)

nsect(INTERNALS)
COMMENT(Hmm, started-out as an email...)

Over time, we put a lot of effort in the configure, make, distribute
system (CMDS) for LilyPond.  Some months ago, we realised it was not
standard GNU --- we require GNU make for building, and Python for extra
scripting.  In an effort to be more GNU, we tried automake, but after two
weeks we realised the costs were too high for us and we reverted to our
own system (see file(automake.urgh)).  Not long after that i was confronted
with two other packages that lacked a decent CMDS.  I realised that Lily's
would be perfect, it's modular and easy.  The only problem was to make a
clean cut between generic and Lily specific stuff.  The result was
StepMake: a bunch of generic makefiles, found in:
verb(
    stepmake/stepmake/*.make
)
eneric helper scripts:
verb(
    stepmake/bin/*.sh
    stepmake/bin/*.py
)
and modular configure functions:
verb(
    stepmake/configure.in
    stepmake/aclocal.m4
    stepmake/config.hh.in
    stepmake/config.make.in
)

Of course, every package has its own configure- and make peculiarities.
The best way to create the configure scripts is to copy them from
nop(stepmake)footnote(Actually, stepmake/bin/stepmakeise.sh will do
that for you.) into you package's toplevel directory.  For most
packages, you'll only have to comment in/out some functions in
file(configure.in).

Package specific makefiles go in:
verb(
    make/Targets.make
    make/Rulese.make
    make/Substitute.make
)
and are included by the generic StepMake makefiles.

nsect(MAINTAINING)

If you want to make and manage (binary) distributions, create and apply
patches, you'll need some framework that's outside of the package's
sourcetree.
For a number of simple  maintenance tasks, StepMake will therefore assume
the following directory structure:

includefile(../layout.yo)

Check and update the layout with the command:
verb(
    ./stepmake/bin/stepdirs.sh
)

nsect(SEE ALSO)

code(../PATCHES.txt)

nsect(CONFIGURING)

Stepmake comes with a number of precooked configure functions for
general needs, such as AC_STEPMAKE_COMPILE for simple C development
and AC_STEPMAKE_CXX for C++.

See configure.in and comment in/out the functions that your package
needs.  For specific needs, you can write your own autoconf code,
see code(info autoconf).

nsect(AUTHORS)

nemail(Jan Nieuwenhuizen)(janneke@gnu.org)

nemail(Han-Wen Nienhuys)(hanwen@cs.uu.nl)

Have fun!