INSTALL
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


INTRODUCTION
============

This file describes how to install CGAL on Unix-like systems (e.g., Linux,
MacOS X, Solaris) as well as on Windows using cygwin. The instructions in
this file are for the most common use cases. For further information, or in
case of problems, please see the detailed installation instructions, which
can be found in the CGAL documentation.

The CGAL documentation is available in various formats (HTML, PDF). It is not
bundled with the software but can be downloaded separately at
<http://www.cgal.org/Manual>.

For more information about CGAL, see the <http://www.cgal.org/>.


PREREQUISITES
=============

To install CGAL, you need several third-party libraries. The mandatory
prerequisites are:

- CMake (>= 2.4.5), http://www.cmake.org/
- Boost (>= 1.33.1), http://www.boost.org/
  If you build boost yourself, or if you use a fine-grained package management
  system, make sure you have at least Boost.Threads, Boost.Graph and
  Boost.ProgramOptions (strictly speaking, the last two Boost components are
  not mandatory, but recommended, as they are used by many demos).
- GMP (>= 4.1.4), http://gmplib.org/
- MPFR (>= 2.2.1), http://www.mpfr.org/

The following prerequisites are recommended, as they are required for the
visualization functionality of CGAL:

- Qt 3.x (>= 3.3), http://trolltech.com/products/
- Qt 4.x (>= 4.2), http://trolltech.com/products/

If you are not interested in visualization, you can ignore Qt 3.x and Qt 4.x.
The following prerequisites are optional. They are required or optional for
some demos or examples:

- TAUCS, http://www.tau.ac.il/~stoledo/taucs/
- BLAS, LAPACK, ATLAS
- LEDA (< 6.0), http://www.algorithmic-solutions.com/leda/
- Geomview, http://www.geomview.org/
- libQGlViewer, http://www.libqglviewer.com/
- VTK, http://www.vtk.org/


CONFIGURATION
=============

To configure CGAL, type

  cmake .

in the directory that contains this INSTALL file. You can add several options
to this command. The most important ones are

  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<dir>          installation directory [/usr/local]
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=<Debug|Release>    build type [Debug]
  -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=<TRUE|FALSE>      shared or static libraries [TRUE]
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=<program>          C compiler [gcc]
  -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=<program>        C++ compiler [g++]

In case you want to add additional compiler and linker flags, you can use

  -DCGAL_CXX_FLAGS                      additional compiler flags
  -DCGAL_MODULE_LINKER_FLAGS            add. linker flags (static libraries)
  -DCGAL_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS            add. linker flags (shared libraries)
  -DCGAL_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS               add. linker flags (executables)

Variants with the additional suffix "_DEBUG" and "_RELEASE" allow to set
separate values for debug and release builds. In case you do not want to add
additional flags, but to override the default flags, replace "CGAL" by
"CMAKE" in the variable names above.

Note that CMake maintains a cache name "CMakeCache.txt". If you change options
(or your environment changes), it is best to remove that file to avoid
problems.


BUILDING
========

To build the CGAL libraries, type

  make

If you want, you can install the CGAL header and libraries. To do so, type

  make install

You can build all demos or examples by typing

  make demo                           or
  make examples

If you are interested in the demos or examples of just a particular module,
you can build them in the following way:

  make -C demo/Alpha_shapes_2        (or: cd demo/Alpha_shapes_2; make)
  make -C examples/Alpha_shapes_2    (or: cd examples/Alpha_shapes_2; make)

A list of all available make targets can be obtained by

  make help


OUT-OF-SOURCE BUILDS
====================

The above instructions build the CGAL library in the same directory tree as
the CGAL sources. Sometimes it is advisable to place all the generated files
somewhere else. For example, if you want to build the library in several
configurations (debug and release, different compilers, and so on). Using
different build directories keeps all the generated files separated for each
configuration.

In the following, $CGAL_SRC denotes the directory with the CGAL sources;
$CGAL_BIN is an arbitrary directory where the generated files will be
placed. You can perform an out-of-source build as follows:

  mkdir $CGAL_BIN
  cd $CGAL_BIN
  cmake [options] $CGAL_SRC
  make
  make install                       (if desired)
  make demo                          (if desired)
  make examples                      (if desired)

Basically, the only difference is the last parameter of the "cmake" command:
$CGAL_SRC instead of "." .