                                                            -*- text -*-

		   GNU Wget Installation Procedure

                   ===============================



0. Introduction

---------------



This document describes how to build Wget from source code on

Unix-like systems.  If you want to install a precompiled Wget, this

document is not for you -- refer to the documentation provided by the

distributors instead.  If you already have Wget and want to learn how

to use it, refer to Wget's Info documentation or man page which you

should have received with your system.  If you are using Windows

(except for Cygwin), read windows/README instead.  If you want to

compile Wget from source code on a Unix-like system, read on.



The preferred form of building Wget is to get a release archive and

unpack it (which you have presumably done, since you are reading

this).  If you have obtained the source code via the Subversion

repository, please follow the instructions in `README.checkout' before

continuing.



1. Dependencies

---------------



To build Wget, your system must support a Unix-like command-line

development environment, including the text-processing utilities (sh,

grep, awk, sed, etc.) and a functional C compiler.  On some GNU/Linux

systems, this means that you will need to install packages such as

`gcc', `glibc-devel' (or `libc6-dev') and `make'.  Most systems come

with these packages preinstalled, but it doesn't hurt to check.  If

you have successfully compiled other software from source, you

probably have them all.



In addition to the C development environment, Wget can use a number of

optional libraries to provide additional features, such as translated

messages and support for "https" URLs.  The "external" dependencies

include:



  - OpenSSL -- for "https" URLs.

  - GNU gettext -- for translated messages.



To be usable for building Wget, the listed libraries must be installed

with their "development" header files.  On GNU/Linux systems this

typically means installing the corredponsing "lib<name>-devel" or

"lib<name>-dev" package along with the package with "lib<name>".



2. Configuration

----------------



Before compiling Wget, you need to "configure" it using the

`configure' script provided with the distribution.  Configuration

serves two distinct purposes: it enables Wget's build system to

inspect certain features of your operating system for more robust

compilation, and it enables you to choose which features you want the

resulting Wget to have.



As is the case with most GNU software, Wget's configure script was

generated with GNU Autoconf.  If you're not familiar with

Autoconf-generated scripts, read on.



The most straightforward way to configure Wget is by running the

configure script without any arguments.  After running some

compilation-related tests, it will create the Makefiles needed to

build Wget.  However, you may wish to customize Wget's configuration

by providing arguments to `configure'.  Wget's configure script

accepts standard Autoconf arguments, the most important ones being:



  --help                  display a help message and exit



  --prefix=PREFIX         install architecture-independent files in PREFIX

                          (/usr/local by default)

  --bindir=DIR            user executables in DIR (PREFIX/bin)

  --infodir=DIR           info documentation in DIR [PREFIX/info]

  --mandir=DIR            man documentation in DIR [PREFIX/man]



For example, if you are not root and want to install Wget in

subdirectories of your home directory, you can use:



    ./configure --prefix=$HOME



In addition to the above generic options, Wget's configuration

supports a number of options more or less specific to Wget.  Options

beginning with "--disable", such as `--disable-opie' or

`--disable-ntlm', allow you to turn off certain built-in functionality

you don't need in order to reduce the size of the executable.  Options

beginning with "--with" turning off autodetection and use of external

software Wget can link with, such as the SSL libraries.  Recognized

"--enable" and "--with" options include:



  --without-ssl           disable SSL autodetection (used for https support)

  --with-libssl-prefix=DIR search for libssl in DIR/lib

  --disable-opie          disable support for opie or s/key FTP login

  --disable-digest        disable support for HTTP digest authorization

  --disable-ntlm          disable support for HTTP NTLM authorization

  --disable-debug         disable support for debugging output

  --disable-nls           do not use Native Language Support

  --disable-largefile     omit support for large files

  --disable-ipv6          disable IPv6 support

  --disable-rpath         do not hardcode runtime library paths



You can inspect decisions made by configure by editing the generated

Makefiles and the `src/config.h' include file.  The defaults should

work without intervention, but if you know what you are doing, editing

the generated files before compilation is fine -- they will not be

regenerated until you run configure again.



`configure' will try to find a compiler in your PATH, defaulting to

`gcc', but falling back to `cc' if the former is unavailable.  This is

a reasonable default on most Unix-like systems, but sometimes you

might want to override it.  The compiler choice is overridden by

setting the `CC' environment variable to the desired compiler file

name.  For example, to force compilation with the Unix `cc' compiler,

invoke configure like this:



    ./configure CC=cc



This assumes that `cc' is in your path -- if it is not, simply use

CC=/path/to/cc instead.  Note that environment variables that affect

configure can be set with the usual shell syntax `VAR=value

./configure' (assuming sh syntax), but can also be specified as

arguments to configure, as shown above.  The latter method, while

being specific to configure, works unmodified in all shells.



Environment variables that affect `configure' include: CFLAGS for C

compiler flags, CPPFLAGS for C preprocessor flags, LDFLAGS for linker

flags, and LIBS for libraries.



Barring the use of --without-* flags, configure will try to autodetect

external libraries needed by Wget, currently only the OpenSSL

libraries.  If they are installed in the system library directories or

in the same prefix where you plan to install Wget, configure should be

able to autodetect them.  If they are installed elsewhere, use the

`--with-libNAME' option to specify the root directory under which

libraries reside in the `lib/' subdirectory and the corresponding

header files reside in the `include/' subdirectory.  For example, if

the OpenSSL libraries are installed under the /usr/local/ssl prefix,

use `--with-libssl=/usr/local/ssl'.



Sometimes external libraries will be installed on the system, but the

header files will be missing.  This often happens on GNU/Linux if you

forget to install the "-devel" or "-dev" package that corresponds to

the library and that is typically *not* installed by default.  In that

case configure will not find the library and you will not be able to

use the features provided by the library until you install the devel

package and rerun configure.  If you believe you have the necessary

headers, but configure still fails to detect the library, please

report it as a bug.



3. Compilation

--------------



To compile GNU Wget after it has been configured, simply type make.

Wget requires a compiler and standard library compliant with the 1990

ISO C standard, which includes the vast majority of compilation

environments present on systems in use today.



After the compilation a ready-to-use `wget' executable should reside

in the src directory.  At this point there is no formal test suite for

testing the binary, but it should be easy enough to test whether the

basic functionality works.



4. Installation

---------------



Use `make install' to install GNU Wget to directories specified to

configure.  To install it in a system directory (which is the

default), you will need to be root.  The standard prefix is

"/usr/local/", which can be changed using the `--prefix' configure

option.



The installation process will copy the wget binary to $PREFIX/bin,

install the wget.info* info pages to $PREFIX/info, the generated

manual page (where available) wget.1 to $PREFIX/man/man1, and the

default config file to $PREFIX/etc, unless a config file already

exists there.  You can customize these directories either through the

configuration process or making the necessary changes in the Makefile.



To delete the files created by Wget installation, you can use `make

uninstall'.

