Tk UNIX README
This is the directory where you configure, compile, test, and install UNIX versions of Tk. This directory also contains source files for Tk that are specific to UNIX.
The information in this file is maintained at:
http://www.tcl.tk/doc/howto/compile.html
For information on platforms where Tcl/Tk is known to compile, along with any porting notes for getting it to work on those platforms, see:
http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/platforms.html
The rest of this file contains instructions on how to do this. The release should compile and run either "out of the box" or with trivial changes on any UNIX-like system that approximates POSIX, BSD, or System V. We know that it runs on workstations from Sun, H-P, DEC, IBM, and SGI, as well as PCs running Linux, BSDI, and SCO UNIX. To compile for a PC running Windows, see the README file in the directory ../win. To compile for a Macintosh, see the README file in the directory ../mac.
RCS: @(#) $Id: README,v 1.1.1.1 2005/04/29 18:47:35 joye Exp $
How To Compile And Install Tk:
(a) Make sure that the Tcl release is present in the directory
../../tcl<version> (or else use the "--with-tcl" switch described below). This release of Tk will only work with the equivalently version Tcl release. Also, be sure that you have configured Tcl before you configure Tk.
(b) Check for patches as described in ../README.
(c) If you have already compiled Tk once in this directory and are now
preparing to compile again in the same directory but for a different platform, or if you have applied patches, type "make distclean" to discard all the configuration information computed previously.
(d) Type "./configure". This runs a configuration script created by GNU
autoconf, which configures Tcl for your system and creates a Makefile. The configure script allows you to customize the Tcl configuration for your site; for details on how you can do this, type "./configure -help" or refer to the autoconf documentation (not included here). Tk's "configure" script supports the following special switches in addition to the standard ones:
--with-tcl=DIR Specifies the directory containing the Tcl
binaries and Tcl's platform-dependent
configuration information. By default
the Tcl directory is assumed to be in the
location given by (a) above.
--enable-threads If this switch is set, Tcl will compile
itself with multithreading support.
--enable-shared If this switch is specified, Tk will compile
itself as a shared library if it can figure
out how to do that on this platform. This
is the default on platforms where we know
how to build shared libraries.
--disable-shared If this switch is specified, Tk will compile
itself as a static library.
--enable-symbols build with debugging symbols By default
standard debugging symbols are used. You
can specify the value "mem" to include
TCL_MEM_DEBUG memory debugging.
--disable-symbols build without debugging symbols
--enable-64bit enable 64bit support (where applicable)
--disable-64bit disable 64bit support (where applicable)
--enable-64bit-vis enable 64bit Sparc VIS support
--disable-64bit-vis disable 64bit Sparc VIS support
--enable-man-symlinks Use symlinks for linking the manpages that
should be reachable under several names.
--enable-man-compression=PROG
Compress the manpages using PROG.
Note: by default gcc will be used if it can be located on the PATH. if you want to use cc instead of gcc, set the CC environment variable to "cc" before running configure. It is not safe to change the Makefile to use gcc after configure is run.
Note: be sure to use only absolute path names (those starting with "/") in the --prefix and --exec-prefix options.
(e) Type "make". This will create a library archive called
"libtk<version>.a" or "libtk<version>.so" and an interpreter application called "wish" that allows you to type Tcl commands interactively or execute script files.
(f) If the make fails then you'll have to personalize the Makefile
for your site or possibly modify the distribution in other ways. First check the porting Web page above to see if there are hints for compiling on your system. If you need to modify Makefile, there are comments at the beginning of it that describe the things you might want to change and how to change them.
(g) Type "make install" to install Tk's binaries and script files in
standard places. You'll need write permission on the installation directoryies to do this. The installation directories are determined by the "configure" script and may be specified with the --prefix and --exec-prefix options to "configure". See the Makefile for information on what directories were chosen; you can override these choices by modifying the "prefix" and "exec_prefix" variables in the Makefile.
(h) At this point you can play with Tk by invoking the "wish"
program and typing Tcl commands. However, if you haven't installed Tk then you'll first need to set your TK_LIBRARY environment variable to hold the full path name of the "library" subdirectory. If you haven't installed Tcl either then you'll need to set your TCL_LIBRARY environment variable as well (see the Tcl README file for information on this). Note that installed versions of wish, libtk.a, libtk.so, and the Tk library have a version number in their names, such as "wish8.4" or "libtk8.4.so"; to use the installed versions, either specify the version number or create a symbolic link (e.g. from "wish" to "wish8.4").
If you have trouble compiling Tk, see the URL noted above about working platforms. It contains information that people have provided about changes they had to make to compile Tk in various environments. We're also interested in hearing how to change the configuration setup so that Tk compiles on additional platforms "out of the box".
Test suite
Tk has a substantial self-test suite, consisting of a set of scripts in the subdirectory "tests". To run the test suite just type "make test" in this directory. You should then see a printout of the test files processed. If any errors occur, you'll see a much more substantial printout for each error. In order to avoid false error reports, be sure to run the tests with an empty resource database (e.g., remove your .Xdefaults file or delete any entries starting with *). Also, don't try to do anything else with your display or keyboard whlie the tests are running, or you may get false violations. See the README file in the "tests" directory for more information on the test suite.
If the test suite generates errors, most likely they are due to nonportable tests that are interacting badly with your system configuration. We are gradually eliminating the non-portable tests, but this release includes many new tests so there will probably be some portability problems. As long as the test suite doesn't core dump, it's probably safe to conclude that any errors represent portability problems in the test suite and not fundamental flaws with Tk.
There are also a number of visual tests for things such as screen layout, Postscript generation, etc. These tests all have to be run by manually enabling the "userInteraction" constraint when testing, and the results have to be verified visually.. This can be done with
make test TESTFLAGS="-constraints userInteraction" Some tests will present a main window with a bunch of menus, which you can use to select various tests.