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authorJoão Valverde <joao.valverde@tecnico.ulisboa.pt>2017-12-12 01:05:39 +0000
committerJoão Valverde <j@v6e.pt>2017-12-13 23:14:30 +0000
commitcb748178feffd35146222fad14b898cb4604f7cb (patch)
tree9444edefdf19a638d1965b476f0f88c3d96c1a21 /doc
parent801ee01affeac724c063c8c643fde9459b4f0ceb (diff)
Add doc/README.build-system with CMake and autotools information
Currently more autotools than CMake. Change-Id: I167f0bdd49d70d72f6155a4d978975c034ce3b4a Reviewed-on: https://code.wireshark.org/review/24773 Reviewed-by: Alexis La Goutte <alexis.lagoutte@gmail.com> Reviewed-by: João Valverde <j@v6e.pt>
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+Wireshark can be built using either CMake or autotools.
+
+CMake is supported on all platforms and required for building on Windows and
+macOS.
+
+Autotools is supported on UNIX and UNIX-like systems (other than macOS). Generally
+we prefer to require a portable make rather than writing portable makefiles[1].
+That means GNU Make. See also [2] for all the pitfalls involved in writing portable
+makefiles. However requiring very recent GNU Make versions is discouraged
+out of ease-of-use concerns. Currently Wireshark should build with any
+reasonably recent GNU Make version (released say in the last ten years).
+
+You are encouraged to report any autotools portability problems in the Wireshark
+bug tracker[3] but please be advised that vanilla POSIX make is generally not
+sufficiently powerful (or convenient) to build a large software project like
+Wireshark so GNU Make is the target implementation. In particular it is an
+explicit goal to support VPATH builds.
+
+[1]http://make.mad-scientist.net/papers/rules-of-makefiles/
+[2]https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/autoconf/manual/html_node/Portable-Make.html#Portable-Make
+[3]https://bugs.wireshark.org