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Update docs.

v5.0
Lasse Collin 14 years ago
parent
commit
ce34ec4f54
  1. 192
      INSTALL
  2. 104
      PACKAGERS
  3. 17
      TODO
  4. 2
      dos/README

192
INSTALL

@ -7,20 +7,23 @@ XZ Utils Installation
1.1. Compilers
1.2. Platform-specific notes
1.2.1. IRIX
1.2.2. Tru64
1.2.3. Windows
1.2.4. DOS
1.2.5. OS/2
1.2.6. OpenVMS
1.2.2. MINIX 3
1.2.3. OpenVMS
1.2.4. Tru64
1.2.5. Windows
1.2.6. DOS
1.3. Adding support for new platforms
2. configure options
2.1. Static vs. dynamic linking of liblzma
2.2. Optimizing xzdec and lzmadec
3. xzgrep and other scripts
3.1. Dependencies
3.2. PATH
4. Troubleshooting
4.1. "No C99 compiler was found."
4.1. "No POSIX conforming shell (sh) was found."
4.2. configure works but build fails at crc32_x86.S
4.2. "No POSIX conforming shell (sh) was found."
4.3. configure works but build fails at crc32_x86.S
4.4. Lots of warnings about symbol visibility
0. Preface
@ -66,21 +69,47 @@ XZ Utils Installation
work.
1.2.2. Tru64
1.2.2. MINIX 3
The default install of MINIX 3 includes Amsterdam Compiler Kit (ACK),
which doesn't support C99. Install GCC to compile XZ Utils.
MINIX 3.1.8 (and possibly some other versions too) has bugs in
/usr/include/stdint.h, which has to be patched before XZ Utils
can be compiled correctly. See
<http://gforge.cs.vu.nl/gf/project/minix/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=537>.
XZ Utils doesn't have code to detect the amount of physical RAM and
number of CPU cores on MINIX 3.
See section 4.4 in this file about symbol visibility warnings (you
may want to pass gl_cv_cc_visibility=no to configure).
1.2.3. OpenVMS
XZ Utils can be built for OpenVMS, but the build system files
are not included in the XZ Utils source package. The required
OpenVMS-specific files are maintained by Jouk Jansen and can be
downloaded here:
http://nchrem.tnw.tudelft.nl/openvms/software2.html#xzutils
1.2.4. Tru64
If you try to use the native C compiler on Tru64 (passing CC=cc to
configure), it is possible that the configure script will complain
that no C99 compiler was found even when the native compiler supports
C99. You can safely override the test for C99 compiler by passing
ac_cv_prog_cc_c99= as the argument to the configure script.
configure), you may need the workaround mention in section 4.1 in
this file (pass also ac_cv_prog_cc_c99= to configure).
1.2.3. Windows
1.2.5. Windows
Building XZ Utils on Windows is supported under MinGW + MSYS and
Cygwin. There is windows/build.bash to ease packaging XZ Utils with
MinGW + MSYS into a redistributable .zip or .7z file. See
windows/INSTALL-Windows.txt for more information.
Building XZ Utils on Windows is supported under MinGW + MSYS,
MinGW-w64 + MSYS, and Cygwin. There is windows/build.bash to
ease packaging XZ Utils with MinGW(-w64) + MSYS into a
redistributable .zip or .7z file. See windows/INSTALL-Windows.txt
for more information.
It might be possible to build liblzma with a non-GNU toolchain too,
but that will probably require writing a separate makefile. Building
@ -94,7 +123,7 @@ XZ Utils Installation
windows/README-Windows.txt for details.
1.2.4. DOS
1.2.6. DOS
There is an experimental Makefile in the "dos" directory to build
XZ Utils on DOS using DJGPP. Support for long file names (LFN) is
@ -104,24 +133,6 @@ XZ Utils Installation
would like to hear if it worked.
1.2.5. OS/2
To omit large number of harmless warnings about visibility support,
pass gl_cv_cc_visibility=no as an argument to the configure script.
This isn't mandatory since it should have no effect on the resulting
binaries.
1.2.6. OpenVMS
XZ Utils can be built for OpenVMS, but the build system files are
currently not included in the XZ Utils source package. The required
OpenVMS-specific files are maintained by Jouk Jansen and can be
downloaded here:
http://nchrem.tnw.tudelft.nl/openvms/software2.html#xzutils
1.3. Adding support for new platforms
If you have written patches to make XZ Utils to work on previously
@ -139,7 +150,7 @@ XZ Utils Installation
2. configure options
--------------------
In most cases, the defaults are what you want. Most of the options
In most cases, the defaults are what you want. Many of the options
below are useful only when building a size-optimized version of
liblzma or command line tools.
@ -192,6 +203,29 @@ XZ Utils Installation
the liblzma ABI, so this option should be used only when
it is known to not cause problems.
--disable-xz
--disable-xzdec
--disable-lzmadec
--disable-lzmainfo
Don't build and install the command line tool mentioned
in the option name.
NOTE: Disabling xz will skip some tests in "make check".
NOTE: If xzdec is disabled and lzmadec is left enabled,
a dangling man page symlink lzmadec.1 -> xzdec.1 is
created.
--disable-lzma-links
Don't create symlinks for LZMA Utils compatibility.
This includes lzma, unlzma, and lzcat. If scripts are
installed, also lzdiff, lzcmp, lzgrep, lzegrep, lzfgrep,
lzmore, and lzless will be omitted if this option is used.
--disable-scripts
Don't install the scripts xzdiff, xzgrep, xzmore, xzless,
and their symlinks.
--disable-assembler
liblzma includes some assembler optimizations. Currently
there is only assembler code for CRC32 and CRC64 for
@ -259,28 +293,6 @@ XZ Utils Installation
single-threaded applications and want to avoid dependency
on libpthread.
--enable-dynamic=TYPE
Specify how command line tools should be linked against
liblzma. Possible TYPES:
yes All command line tools are linked against
shared liblzma (if shared liblzma was built).
This is equivalent to --enable-dynamic (i.e.
no =TYPE).
mixed Some tools are linked against static liblzma
and some against shared liblzma. This is the
default and recommended way.
no All command line tools are linked against
static liblzma (if static liblzma was built).
This is equivalent to --disable-dynamic.
This option is mostly useful for packagers, if distro
policy requires linking against shared libaries. See the
file PACKAGERS for more information about pros and cons
of this option.
--enable-debug
This enables the assert() macro and possibly some other
run-time consistency checks. It makes the code slower, so
@ -293,6 +305,52 @@ XZ Utils Installation
resulting binaries.
2.1. Static vs. dynamic linking of liblzma
On 32-bit x86, linking against static liblzma can give a minor
speed improvement. Static libraries on x86 are usually compiled as
position-dependent code (non-PIC) and shared libraries are built as
position-independent code (PIC). PIC wastes one register, which can
make the code slightly slower compared to a non-PIC version. (Note
that this doesn't apply to x86-64.)
If you want to link xz against static liblzma, the simplest way
is to pass --disable-shared to configure. If you want also shared
liblzma, run configure again and run "make install" only for
src/liblzma.
2.2. Optimizing xzdec and lzmadec
xzdec and lzmadec are intended to be relatively small instead of
optimizing for the best speed. Thus, it is a good idea to build
xzdec and lzmadec separately:
- To link the tools against static liblzma, pass --disable-shared
to configure.
- To select somewhat size-optimized variant of some things in
liblzma, pass --enable-small to configure.
- Tell the compiler to optimize for size instead of speed.
E.g. with GCC, put -Os into CFLAGS.
- xzdec and lzmadec will never use multithreading capabilities of
liblzma. You can avoid dependency on libpthread by passing
--disable-threads to configure.
- There are and will be no translated messages for xzdec and
lzmadec, so it is fine to pass also --disable-nls to configure.
- Only decoder code is needed, so you can speed up the build
slightly by passing --disable-encoders to configure. This
shouldn't affect the final size of the executables though,
because the linker is able to omit the encoder code anyway.
If you have no use for xzdec or lzmadec, you can disable them with
--disable-xzdec and --disable-lzmadec.
3. xzgrep and other scripts
---------------------------
@ -343,7 +401,7 @@ XZ Utils Installation
support enough C99.
4.1. "No POSIX conforming shell (sh) was found."
4.2. "No POSIX conforming shell (sh) was found."
xzgrep and other scripts need a shell that (roughly) conforms
to POSIX. The configure script tries to find such a shell. If
@ -352,7 +410,7 @@ XZ Utils Installation
script.
4.2. configure works but build fails at crc32_x86.S
4.3. configure works but build fails at crc32_x86.S
The easy fix is to pass --disable-assembler to the configure script.
@ -368,3 +426,15 @@ XZ Utils Installation
correct configure triplet using the --build=CPU-COMPANY-SYSTEM option
(see INSTALL.generic).
4.4. Lots of warnings about symbol visibility
On some systems where symbol visibility isn't supported, GCC may
still accept the visibility options and attributes, which will make
configure think that visibility is supported. This will result in
many compiler warnings. You can avoid the warnings by forcing the
visibility support off by passing gl_cv_cc_visibility=no as an
argument to the configure script. This has no effect on the
resulting binaries, but fewer warnings looks nicer and may allow
using --enable-werror.

104
PACKAGERS

@ -7,8 +7,6 @@ Information to packagers of XZ Utils
2. Package description
3. License
4. configure options
4.1. Static vs. dynamic linking of liblzma
4.2. Optimizing xzdec and lzmadec
5. Additional documentation
6. Extra files
7. Installing XZ Utils and LZMA Utils in parallel
@ -141,77 +139,31 @@ Information to packagers of XZ Utils
--enable-small (*)
--disable-threads (*)
(*) These are OK when building xzdec and lzmadec as explained later.
(*) These are OK when building xzdec and lzmadec as described
in INSTALL.
You may use --enable-werror but be careful with it since it may break
the build due to some useless warning when the build environment
changes (like CPU architecture or compiler version).
4.1. Static vs. dynamic linking of liblzma
The default is to link the most important command line tools against
static liblzma, and the less important tools against shared liblzma.
This can be changed by passing --enable-dynamic to configure, or by
not building static libraries at all by passing --disable-static
to configure. It is mildly recommended that you use the default, but
the configure options make it easy to do otherwise if the distro policy
so requires.
On 32-bit x86, linking against static liblzma can give a minor
speed improvement. Static libraries on x86 are usually compiled as
position-dependent code (non-PIC) and shared libraries are built as
position-independent code (PIC). PIC wastes one register, which can
make the code slightly slower compared to a non-PIC version. (Note
that this doesn't apply to x86-64.)
Linking against static liblzma avoids a dependency on liblzma shared
library, and makes it slightly easier to copy the command line tools
between systems (e.g. quick 'n' dirty emergency recovery of some
files). It also allows putting the command line tools to /bin while
leaving liblzma to /usr/lib (assuming that your distribution uses
such a file system hierarchy), if no other file in /bin would require
liblzma.
If you don't want to distribute static libraries but you still
want to link the command line tools against static liblzma, it is
probably easiest to build both static and shared liblzma, but after
"make DESTDIR=$PKG install" remove liblzma.a and modify liblzma.la
to not contain a reference to liblzma.a.
4.2. Optimizing xzdec and lzmadec
xzdec and lzmadec are intended to be relatively small instead of
optimizing for the best speed. Thus, it is a good idea to build
xzdec and lzmadec separately:
- Only decoder code is needed, so you can speed up the build
slightly by passing --disable-encoders to configure. This
shouldn't affect the final size of the executables though,
because the linker is able to omit the encoder code anyway.
- xzdec and lzmadec will never use multithreading capabilities of
liblzma. You can avoid dependency on libpthread by passing
--disable-threads to configure.
- There are and will be no translated messages for xzdec and
lzmadec, so it is fine to pass also --disable-nls to configure.
- To select somewhat size-optimized variant of some things in
liblzma, pass --enable-small to configure.
- Tell the compiler to optimize for size instead of speed.
E.g. with GCC, put -Os into CFLAGS.
xzdec and lzmadec don't provide any functionality that isn't already
available in the xz tool. Shipping xzdec and lzmadec without size
optimization and statically-linked liblzma isn't very useful. Doing
that would give users the xzdec man page, which may make it easier
for people to find out that such tools exists, but the executables
wouldn't have any advantage over the full-featured xz.
5. Additional documentation
---------------------------
"make install" copies some additional documentation to $docdir
(--docdir in configure). These a copy of the GNU GPL v2, which can
be replaced with a symlink if your distro ships with shared copies
of the common license texts.
(--docdir in configure). There is a copy of the GNU GPL v2, which
can be replaced with a symlink if your distro ships with shared
copies of the common license texts.
liblzma API is currently only documented using Doxygen tags in the
API headers. It hasn't been tested much how good results Doxygen
is able to make from the tags (e.g. Doxyfile might need tweaking,
the tagging may need to be improved etc.), so it might be simpler
to just let people read docs directly from the .h files for now,
and also save quite a bit in package size at the same time.
6. Extra files
@ -246,32 +198,32 @@ Information to packagers of XZ Utils
----------
Here is an example for i686 GNU/Linux that
- links xz against static liblzma;
- includes only shared liblzma in the final package;
- links xzdec and lzmadec against static liblzma while
avoiding libpthread dependency.
- links xz and lzmainfo against shared liblzma;
- links size-optimized xzdec and lzmadec against static liblzma
while avoiding libpthread dependency;
- includes only shared liblzma in the final package; and
- copies also the "extra" directory to the package.
PKG=/tmp/xz-pkg
tar xf xz-x.y.z.tar.gz
cd xz-x.y.z
./configure \
--prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
CFLAGS='-march=i686 -O2'
--disable-static \
--disable-xzdec \
--disable-lzmadec \
CFLAGS='-march=i686 -mtune=generic -O2'
make
make DESTDIR=$PKG install-strip
rm -f $PKG/usr/lib/lib*.a
sed -i "s/^old_library=.*$/old_library=''/" $PKG/usr/lib/lib*.la
make clean
./configure \
--prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--disable-shared \
--disable-nls \
--disable-encoders \
--enable-small \
--disable-threads \
CFLAGS='-march=i686 -Os'
CFLAGS='-march=i686 -mtune=generic -Os'
make -C src/liblzma
make -C src/xzdec
make -C src/xzdec DESTDIR=$PKG install-strip

17
TODO

@ -18,15 +18,20 @@ Known bugs
XZ Utils compress some files significantly worse than LZMA Utils.
This is due to faster compression presets used by XZ Utils, and
can be worked around by using "xz --extreme". However, the presets
need some tweaking and maybe this issue can be minimized without
making the typical case too much slower.
can often be worked around by using "xz --extreme". With some files
--extreme isn't enough though: it's most likely with files that
compress extremely well, so going from compression ratio of 0.003
to 0.004 means big relative increase in the compressed file size.
xz doesn't quote unprintable characters when it displays file names
given on the command line.
tuklib_exit() doesn't block signals => EINTR is possible.
SIGTSTP is not handled. If xz is stopped, the estimated remaining
time and calculated (de)compression speed won't make sense in the
progress indicator (xz --verbose).
Missing features
----------------
@ -41,11 +46,13 @@ Missing features
Buffer-to-buffer coding could use less RAM (especially when
decompressing LZMA1 or LZMA2).
I/O library is not implemented. It will possibly be named libzzf.
I/O library is not implemented (similar to gzopen() in zlib).
It will be a separate library that supports uncompressed, .gz,
.bz2, .lzma, and .xz files.
lzma_strerror() to convert lzma_ret to human readable form?
This is tricky, because the same error codes are used with
slightly different meanings.
slightly different meanings, and this cannot be fixed anymore.
Documentation

2
dos/README

@ -84,5 +84,5 @@ Bugs
Pressing Ctrl-c or Ctrl-Break won't remove the incomplete target file
when running under Windows XP Command Prompt (something goes wrong
with SIGINT handling). Use the Windows build of XZ Utils on Windows.
with SIGINT handling). It works correctly under Windows 95/98/98SE/ME.

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