kdecvs-build Documentation

kdecvs-build Reference

You should always be able to find the latest version of this file at http://grammarian.homelinux.net/kdecvs-build/

Introduction
Features
Configuration File
Configuration File Options
Command-line Options
Environment Variables Used

Introduction

kdecvs-build is a Perl script to help users install KDE from CVS. Unlike the two scripts available at http://developer.kde.org/build/compile_cvs.html, this script neither requires nor uses CVSup, for those who either can't or don't feel like installing it.

It is authored by Michael Pyne (mpyne (AT) grammarian (DOT) homelinux (DOT) net), and is one of several build scripts for this purpose.

2004-Dec-12 v0.87
New features:

Add KDE-specific directory to pkg-config search path, so that digikam will build without any special help.
Added option manual-update, which prevents a module from updating, building, and installing unless it is specified on the command line.

Bug fixes:

Don't warn when specifying modules on the command line along with the --install option.

2004-Oct-12: v0.86
New features:

kdecvs-build has been updated to work the latest unsermake from kdenonbeta. Note that the old unsermake will no longer work. kdecvs-build by default automatically updates unsermake and uses the latest version, so this change shouldn't affect you much.
Don't append make options to the make command when installing anymore, as sometimes it seems to confuse unsermake.

2004-Sep-20: v0.85
New features:

kdecvs-pywizard, the include PyQt-based configuration wizard, has been tweaked a little. The catch, of course, is that you must already have both Qt and PyQt installed. You may want to consider the online configuration wizard

Bugfixes:

Modules build in the correct order again.
Add information on failed installations to the summary.
Don't show about packages that successfully built if none did so.
Fix brokenness with make-install-prefix option.

2004-Sep-17: v0.84
New features:

You can quickly update and/or build a specific subdirectory within a module at the command line. This corresponds to the checkout-only configuration option.

For example, to checkout and build the khtml directory of kdelibs, you would type kdecvs-build kdelibs/khtml. You must still have the module configured within your .kdecvs-buildrc.

Also, this changes the way the checkout-only option performs the build. Now instead of downloading the different pieces and just building the module, kdecvs-build will download the pieces and then build the pieces in their subdirectory. I believe this should be equivalent, but if not, just let me know.

The install handler has also been changed to only install the subdirectory you choose, so doing a kdecvs-build kdeextragear-1/amarok won't install all of kdeextragear-1. ;-)
The log_command() function outputs the command that it is logging in debug mode.

Bugfixes:

If a package didn't update, note that fact in the summary output at the end.

2004-Aug-29: v0.83
New features:

Added the --ignore-modules option, which allows you to specify modules to skip from the CVS and build process, by request of Matt Rogers.
Also, kdecvs-build is now hosted in KDE's kdenonbeta CVS module.

Features

Features that I can think of off the top of my head:

Automatically checks out modules from CVS or updates from CVS, as appropriate.
Support for checking out specific branches of CVS modules.
Times the build process for modules.
Will automatically try to rebuild modules that were using incremental make, which is prone to failure after certain kinds of CVS commits.
Can resume a previous script, or start the build process from a particular module.
Much better support for qt-copy than 0.4x.
Can create a .cvsrc automatically if you forget to. .cvspass still isn't automatically created.
Unsermake support.
Tilde-expansion for your configuration options. For example, you can specify:
```
qtdir ~/kdecvs/qt-copy
```
Configurable build and logging directories
Automatically sets up a build system, with the source directory not the same as the build directory, in order to keep the CVS download directory pristine. The exception is qt-copy, which isn't designed to be built like that (unless you'd like to test use-qt-builddir-hack).
You can specify global options to apply to every module to check out, and you can specify options to apply to individual modules as well.
Since the autotools sometimes get out of sync with changes to the CVS source tree, you can force a rebuild of a module by creating a file called .refresh-me in the build directory of the module in question, or by running kdecvs-build with the --refresh-build option.
You can specify various environment values to be used during the build, including KDEDIR, QTDIR, DO_NOT_COMPILE, and CXXFLAGS.
Includes CVS over SSH support. The script CANNOT access your private key if it is password protected, so using ssh-agent is recommended.
Command logging. Logs are dated and numbered so that you always have a log of a script run. Also, a special symlink called latest is created to always point to the most recent log entry in the log directory.
If you're using a user build of KDE instead of a system build (for which you must be root to install), you can use the script to install for you. I haven't audited this code, and it makes ample use of the system() call, so I would not recommend running it as root at this point.
You can use make-install-prefix to prefix the make install command line with a separate command, which is useful for sudo.
You can check out only a portion of a KDE CVS module. For example, you could check out only taglib from kdesupport, or only K3B from kdeextragear-1. The script will automatically pull in kde-common if necessary to make the build work.
You can "pretend" to do the operations. If you pass --pretend or -p on the command line, the script will give a very verbose description of the commands it is about to execute, without actually executing it.
Can log output of all commands to a file in $KDECVSDIR/log.

Things that kdecvs-build does NOT do:

Find the fastest KDE CVS mirror. There isn't even a list shipped with the script at this point.
Brush your teeth. You should remember to do that yourself.
The script probably isn't bug-free. Sorry.

Format of .kdecvs-buildrc

To use the script, you must have a file in your home directory called .kdecvs-buildrc, which describes the modules you'd like to download and build.

It starts with the global options, specified like the following:

global

option-name option-value

[...]

end global

It is then followed by one or more module sections, specified like the following:

module module-name

option-name option-value

[...]

end module

module-name must be a module from the KDE CVS repository (for example, kdelibs or kdebase). Some options override global options, some add to global options, and some global options simply can't be overridden.

The following is an alphabetized list of options you can use. Click on the option to find out more about it. If one is not documented, please e-mail me using the address you can find above.

apply-qt-patches
binpath
build-system-only
checkout-only
configure-flags
cvs-root
cvs-server
cxxflags
debug
disable-build-list
do-not-compile
inst-apps
install-after-build
kdedir
libpath
lockfile
make-install-prefix
make-options
manual-build
manual-update
no-cvs
no-rebuild-on-fail
pretend
qtdir
reconfigure
recreate-configure
refresh-build
release-tag
set-env
stop-on-failure
use-qt-builddir-hack
use-unsermake

Configuration file Options

Here is a table of the various options, and some comments on them. Any option which overrides the global option will override a command line setting as well.

Option-name	Module -> Global Behavior	Notes
apply-qt-patches	Overrides global	This option is only useful for qt-copy. If it is set to a non-zero value, then the apply-patches script in qt-copy will be run prior to building, in order to apply the non-official patches to the qt-copy. Since these patches are normally the reason for using qt-copy instead of a stock Qt, it shouldn't do any harm to enable it.
binpath	Can't be overridden	Set this option to set the environment variable PATH while building. You can't override this setting in a module option. The default value is empty, which is likely not what you want. This environment variable should include the colon-separated paths of your development toolchain. The paths $KDEDIR/bin and $QTDIR/bin are automatically added. You may use the tilde (~) for any paths you add using this option. On my system, the setting binpath /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin is the minimally sufficient setting.
build-dir	Overrides global	Use this option to change the directory to contain the built sources. There are three different ways to use it: Relative to the KDE CVS source directory ($KDECVS). This is the default, and the way the script worked up to version v0.61. This mode is selected if you type a directory name that doesn't start with a tilde (~) or a slash (/). The default value is build. Absolute path. If you specify a path that begins with a /, then that path is used directory. For example, /tmp/kde-obj-dir/. Relative to your home directory. If you specify a path that begins with a ~, then the path is used relative to your home directory, analogous to the shell's tilde-expansion. For example, ~/builddir would set the build directory to /home/mpyne/builddir on my system. Perhaps surprisingly, this option can be changed per module.
build-system-only	Overrides global	Set this option to only create the build system for this module. What that means is that the `make -f Makefile.cvs` command will be run, and the configure script will be created (but not run), and make will not be run. This option is exactly equivalent to the --build-system-only command line option. This command is useful for checking what configure-flags each module supports so you can change your ~/.kdecvs-buildrc.
checkout-only	Overrides global	Set this option to checkout CVS sources piece by piece. The value for this option should be a space separated list of directories to checkout. If you don't include the admin directory, it will automatically be prepended, as it is required by the KDE build system. When checking out piece by piece, the admin directory will be pulled in from kde-common, which is where it exists on the CVS server. Although this option overrides the global option, be aware that setting this as a global option makes no sense.
configure-flags	Appends to global option (except for qt-copy)	Use this option to specify what flags to pass to ./configure when creating the build system for the module. When this is used as a global-option, it is applied to all modules that this script builds. qt-copy uses a much different set of configure options than the rest of KDE, so this option overrides the global settings when applied to qt-copy.
cvs-root	Can't be overridden	This option is used to set the directory on your computer to store the KDE CVS sources at. If you don't specify this value, the default is ~/kdecvs. If you do specify this value, use an absolute path name. Note that this setting has nothing to do with the CVSROOT environment variable. For that, see cvs-server.
cvs-server	Can't be overridden	This option is used to set the server used to check out from CVS. As an example, you could try :pserver:anonymous@bluemchen.kde.org:/home/kde Please see http://developer.kde.org/source/anoncvs.html for a list of CVS mirrors. It also has links to other CVS build scripts that you can try.
cxxflags	Appends to global option	Use this option to specify what flags to pass to ./configure as the CXXFLAGS when creating the build system for the module. This option is specified here instead of with configure-flags because this option will also set the environment variable CXXFLAGS during the build process.
debug	Can't be overridden	This option enables the script's debug mode. At this point, all this switch does is disable logging to files, instead dumping all output to stdout.
disable-build-list	Can't be overridden	Normally kdecvs-build will write out the list of modules that were successfully built to a file under the KDE CVS source directory called 'successfully-built'. If you set this option to 0, kdecvs-build will skip writing out the file.
do-not-compile	Overrides global	Use this option to set the DO_NOT_COMPILE environment variable prior to running the configure script. According to the KDE Developer FAQ, this should cause any toplevel directory you pass to not be built. The directories should be space-separated. Note that the sources to the programs will still be downloaded. You can use the checkout-only directive to choose directories that you want to check out.
inst-apps	Overrides global	This is the opposite of the do-not-compile option. This option makes it so that only the given toplevel directories are built. The directories should be space-separated. Any changes don't take effect until the next time make -f Makefile.cvs is run, either automatically by the script, or manually by the --refresh-build or --recreate-configure options. Note that the sources to the programs will still be downloaded. You can use the checkout-only directive to choose directories that you want to check out.
install-after-build	Overrides global	This option is used to install the package after it successfully builds. This option is enabled by default. If you want to disable this, you need to set this option to 0 in the configuration file. You can also use the --no-install command line flag.
kdedir	Can't be overridden	Set this option to set the environment variable KDEDIR while building. This is useful for one-user installations of KDE. See http://developer.kde.org/build/build2ver.html. You can't override this setting in a module option. If you don't specify this option, it defaults to absolutely nothing, which will mess up the configure script. You may use a tilde (~) to represent your home directory.
libpath	Can't be overridden	Set this option to set the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH while building. You can't override this setting in a module option. The default value is blank, but the paths $KDEDIR/lib and $QTDIR/lib are automatically added. You may use the tilde (~) for any paths you add using this option.
lockfile	Can't be overridden	The path of a file to use for script locking, to prevent parallel execution. If you don't specify this value, the default is ~/.kdecvs-lock If the script is unable to create this file, it will abort.
log-dir	Overrides global	Use this option to change the directory used to hold the log files generated by the script. This setting can be set on a per-module basis as of version 0.64.
make-install-prefix	Overrides global	Set this variable to a space-separated list, which is interpreted as a command and its options to precede the make install command used to install modules. This is useful for installing packages with sudo for example, but please be careful while dealing with root privileges.
make-options	Overrides global	Set this variable in order to pass command line options to the make command. This is useful for programs such as distcc. distcc allows you to share your compilation work among more than one computer. To use it, you must use the -j option to make. Now you can. According to the docs, 2 * number_of_network_cpus is recommended. I have 2 CPUs total, so it would be -j4 in my case.
make-output-file	Overrides global	DEPRECATED. As of version 0.6, this option is no longer used. Now all commands are logged, including the make process. You can use the log-dir option to change the logging directory, however.
manual-build	Overrides global	Set the option value to 'true' to keep the build process from attempting to build this module. It will still be kept up-to-date when updating from CVS. This option is exactly equivalent to the --no-build command line option.
manual-update	Overrides global	Set the option value to 'true' to keep the build process from attempting to update (and by extension, build or install) this module. If you set this option for a module, then you have pretty much commented it out.
no-cvs	Overrides global	Set this option value to 'true' to prevent CVS updates for the module. This option is exactly equivalent to the --no-cvs command line option.
no-rebuild-on-fail	Overrides global	Set this option value to 'true' to always prevent kdecvs-build from trying to rebuild this module if it should fail an incremental build. Normally kdecvs-build will try to rebuild the module from scratch to counteract the effect of a stray CVS update messing up the build system.
pretend	Can't be overridden	Set the option value to 'true' in order to "fake" the update/build or install process. This setting results in verbose output, and is exactly equivalent to the --pretend command line option.
qtdir	Can't be overridden	Set this option to set the environment variable QTDIR while building. You can't override this setting in a module option. If you don't specify this option, it defaults to absolutely nothing, which will mess up the configure script. You may use a tilde (~) to represent your home directory.
recreate-configure	Overrides global	Use this option to re-run make -f Makefile.cvs and then reconfigure the module before building. Note that setting this option in the configuration file isn't a great idea, use --recreate-configure on the command line instead.
release-tag	Overrides global	Use this option to force checkout from a specific KDE CVS branch. For example, setting this to KDE_3_2_BRANCH allows you to keep up-to-date with the current stable KDE release, including bugfixes. You can use KDE's WebCVS page to find out what branches exist for each CVS module.
reconfigure	Overrides global	Use this option to reconfigure the module before building. Note that setting this option in the configuration file isn't a great idea, use --reconfigure on the command line instead.
refresh-build	Overrides global	Set this option value to 'true' to cause the build system for this module to start from scratch every time the script is run. This option is exactly equivalent to the --refresh-build command line option.
set-env	Overrides global	This option accepts a space-separated set of values, where the first value is the environment variable to set, and the rest of the values is what you want the variable set to. For example, to set the variable RONALD to McDonald, you would put in the appropriate section this command: set-env RONALD McDonald This option is special in that it can be repeated without overriding earlier set-env settings in the same section of the configuration file. This way you can set more than one environment variable per module (or globally).
stop-on-failure	Overrides global	Set this option value to 'true' to cause the script to stop execution after an error occurs during the build or install process. This option is off by default.
use-qt-builddir-hack	Overrides global	Although this option overrides the global option, it only makes sense for qt-copy. Set this option to 'true' to enable the script's experimental srcdir != builddir mode. When enabled, kdecvs-build will copy the qt-copy CVS module to the build directory, and perform builds from there. That means your QTDIR environment variable should be set to $(qt-copy-build-dir)/qt-copy/lib instead. You should also change your qtdir option accordingly. Incremental make should still work in this mode, as the timestamps will be preserved after the copy. If you use the apply-qt-patches option, the patches will be applied in the build directory, not the source directory.
use-unsermake	Overrides global	Set this option to a non-zero value in order to use the experimental unsermake program instead of automake when running the configure script. This can lead to some serious decreases in build time, especially for distributed building systems.

Command-line options

The script accepts the following command-line options:

--help, which displays simple help on this script.
--version, display the program version.
--author, display contact information for the author.
--pretend (or -p), don't actually DO anything, but act like you did.
--cvs-only, Only perform the CVS update.
--build-only, Only perform the build process.
--ignore-modules, Don't including the modules passed on the rest of the command line in the update/build process.
--no-cvs, Skip contacting the CVS server.
--no-build, Skip the build process.
--no-install, Don't automatically install packages after they're built.
--debug, Enables debug mode for the script. Currently this means that all output will be dumped to STDOUT in addition to being logged in the log directory like normal. Also, many functions are much more verbose about what they're doing in debugging mode.
--no-rebuild-on-fail, Don't try and rebuild modules that have failed building from scratch. kdecvs-build will never try to do this to a module that already was tried to be built from scratch.
--refresh-build, Recreate the build system and make from scratch.
--reconfigure, Run the configure script again without cleaning the build directory.
--recreate-configure, Run make -f Makefile.cvs again to create the configure script, and continue building as normal. This option implies --reconfigure.
--resume, which tries to continue building from where the script stopped last time. The script starts building the module after the last module to be compiled last time the script was run, whether or not it succeeded. This option implies --no-cvs. You should not specify other module names on the command line.
--resume-from, which is like --resume, except that you supply the module to start building from as the next parameter on the command line. This option implies --no-cvs. You should not specify other module names on the command line.
--rc-file, which interprets the next command line parameter as the file to read the configuration options from. The default value for this parameter is ~/.kdecvs-buildrc.
--build-system-only, Stop after runnning make -f Makefile.cvs. The configure script will still need to be run, which kdecvs-build will do next time. This lets you prepare all the configure scripts at once so you can view the ./configure --help for each module, and edit your configure-flags accordingly.
--install, If this is the only command-line option, it tries to install all of the modules contained in successfully-built, except for qt-copy, which doesn't need installation. If command-line options are specified after --install, they are all assumed to be modules to install. Note that after v0.60, modules are automatically installed if they build successfully.

Environment Variables

The script no longer uses any environment variables. Please try to set at least binpath, qtdir, and kdedir in your .kdecvs-buildrc. See the .kdecvs-buildrc options.