<title>Compiling and Installing Fossil</title>

<h2>0.0 Using A Pre-compiled Binary</h2>

<p>Released versions of fossil come with
<a href="http://www.fossil-scm.org/download.html">pre-compiled binaries and
a source archive</a> for that release. You can thus skip the following if you
want to run or build a release version of fossil. Just download
the appropriate package from the <a href="http://www.fossil-scm.org/download.html">downloads page</a>
and put it on your $PATH.
To uninstall, simply delete the binary.
To upgrade from an older release, just overwrite the older binary with
the newer one.</p>

<h2>0.1 Executive Summary</h2>

<p>Building and installing is very simple.  Three steps:</p>

<ol>
<li> Download and unpack a source tarball or ZIP.
<li> <b>./configure; make</b>
<li> Move the resulting "fossil" or "fossil.exe" executable to someplace on
your $PATH.
</ol>

<p><hr>

<h2>1.0 Obtaining The Source Code</h2>

<p>Fossil is self-hosting, so you can obtain a ZIP archive or tarball
containing a snapshot of the <em>latest</em> version directly from 
Fossil's own fossil repository. Additionally, source archives of 
<em>released</em> versions of
fossil are available from the <a href="http://www.fossil-scm.org/download.html">downloads page</a>.
To obtain a development version of fossil, follow these steps:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Point your web browser at
<a href="http://www.fossil-scm.org/">
http://www.fossil-scm.org/</a>.</p></li>

<li><p>Click on the 
<a href="http://www.fossil-scm.org/fossil/timeline">Timeline</a> 
link at the top of the page.</p></li>

<li><p>Select a version of of Fossil you want to download.  The latest
version on the trunk branch is usually a good choice.  Click on its
link.</p></li>

<li><p>Finally, click on one of the
"Zip Archive" or "Tarball" links, according to your preference.
These link will build a ZIP archive or a gzip-compressed tarball of the 
complete source code and download it to your browser.
</ol>

<h2>Aside: Is it really safe to use an unreleased development version of
the Fossil source code?</h2>

Yes!  Any check-in on the 
[/timeline?t=trunk | trunk branch] of the Fossil
[http://fossil-scm.org/fossil/timeline | Fossil self-hosting repository]
will work fine.  (Dodgy code is always on a branch.)  In the unlikely
event that you pick a version with a serious bug, it still won't
clobber your files.  Fossil uses several
[./selfcheck.wiki | self-checks] prior to committing any
repository change that prevent loss-of-work due to bugs.

The Fossil [./selfhost.wiki | self-hosting repositories], especially
the one at [http://www.fossil-scm.org/fossil], usually run a version
of trunk that is less than a week or two old.  Look at the bottom
right-hand corner of this screen (to the right of "This page was
generated in...") to see exactly which version of Fossil is
rendering this page.  It is always safe to use whatever version
of the Fossil code you find running on the main Fossil website.

<h2>2.0 Compiling</h2>

<ol>
<li value="5">
<p>Unpack the ZIP or tarball you downloaded then
<b>cd</b> into the directory created.</p></li>

<li><i>(Optional, unix only)</i>
Run <b>./configure</b> to construct a makefile.

<ol type="a">
<li><p>
If you do not have the OpenSSL library installed on your system, then
add <b>--with-openssl=none</b> to omit the https functionality.

<li><p>
To build a statically linked binary (suitable for use inside a chroot
jail) add the <b>--static</b> option.

<li><p>
Other configuration options can be seen by running
<b>./configure --help</b>
</ol>

<li><p>Run "<b>make</b>" to build the "fossil" or "fossil.exe" executable.
The details depend on your platform and compiler.

<ol type="a">
<li><p><i>Unix</i> → the configure-generated Makefile should work on
all unix and unix-like systems.  Simply type "<b>make</b>".

<li><p><i>Unix without running "configure"</i> → if you prefer to avoid running configure, you
can also use: <b>make -f Makefile.classic</b>.  You may want to make minor
edits to Makefile.classic to configure the build for your system.

<li><p><i>MinGW/MinGW-w64</i> → Use the mingw makefile:
"<b>make -f win/Makefile.mingw</b>". On a Windows box you will
need either Cygwin or Msys as build environment. On Cygwin, Linux
or Darwin you may want to make minor edits to win/Makefile.mingw
to configure the cross-compile environment.

<li><p><i>MSVC</i> → Use the msc makefile.  First
change to the "win/" subdirectory ("<b>cd win</b>") then run
"<b>nmake /f Makefile.msc</b>".  Alternatively, the batch file
"<b>win\buildmsvc.bat</b>" may be used and it will attempt to
detect and use the latest installed version of MSVC.
</ol>
</ol>

<h2>3.0 Installing</h2>

<ol>
<li value="8">
<p>The finished binary is named "fossil" (or "fossil.exe" on windows).  
Put this binary in a 
directory that is somewhere on your PATH environment variable.
It does not matter where.</p>

<li>
<p><b>(Optional:)</b>
To uninstall, just delete the binary.</p>
</ol>

<h2>4.0 Additional Considerations</h2>

<ul>
<li><p>
  If the makefiles that come with Fossil do not work for
  you, or for some other reason you want to know how to build
  Fossil manually, then refer to the
  [./makefile.wiki | Fossil Build Process] document which describes
  in detail what the makefiles do behind the scenes.

<li><p>
  The fossil executable is self-contained and stand-alone and usually 
  requires no special libraries or other software to be installed.  However, 
  the "--tk" option to the [/help/diff|diff command] requires that Tcl/Tk
  be installed on the local machine.  You can get Tcl/Tk from 
  [http://www.activestate.com/activetcl|ActiveState].

<li><p>
  To build on older Macs (circa 2002, MacOS 10.2) edit the Makefile
  generated by configure to add the following lines:
  <blockquote><pre>
  TCC += -DSQLITE_WITHOUT_ZONEMALLOC
  TCC += -D_BSD_SOURCE
  TCC += -DWITHOUT_ICONV
  TCC += -Dsocketlen_t=int
  TCC += -DSQLITE_MAX_MMAP_SIZE=0
</pre></blockquote>
</ul>
