Introduction

ATF uses the GNU Automake, GNU Autoconf and GNU Libtool utilities as its build system. These are used only when compiling the application from the source code package. If you want to install ATF from a binary package, you do not need to read this document.

For the impatient:

$ ./configure
$ make
Gain root privileges
# make install
Drop root privileges
$ make installcheck

Or alternatively, install as a regular user into your home directory:

$ ./configure --prefix ~/local
$ make
$ make install
$ make installcheck

Dependencies

To build and use ATF successfully you need:

A standards-compliant C/C++ complier. For example, GNU GCC 2.95 will not work.
A POSIX shell interpreter.
A make(1) utility.

If you are building ATF from the code on the repository, you will also need the following tools. The versions listed here are the ones used to build the files bundled in the last formal release, but these are not strictly required. Newer ones will most likely work and, maybe, some slightly older ones:

GNU autoconf 2.65
GNU automake 1.11.1
GNU libtool 2.2.6b

If you are building the XML documentation (which is a requisite to be able to generate a distfile), you will also need the following tools:

links
The Simple DocBook DTD 1.1
tidy
xsltproc
xmlcatalog and xmllint

Regenerating the build system

If you are building ATF from code extracted from the repository, you must first regenerate the files used by the build system. You will also need to do this if you modify one of configure.ac or Makefile.am.m4. To do this, simply run:

$ ./autogen.sh

For formal releases, no extra steps are needed.

General build procedure

To build and install the source package, you must follow these steps:

Configure the sources to adapt to your operating system. This is done using the 'configure' script located on the sources' top directory, and it is usually invoked without arguments unless you want to change the installation prefix. More details on this procedure are given on a later section.
Build the sources to generate the binaries and scripts. Simply run 'make' on the sources' top directory after configuring them. No problems should arise.
Install the program by running 'make install'. You may need to become root to issue this step.
Issue any manual installation steps that may be required. These are described later in their own section.
Check that the installed programs work by running 'make installcheck'. You do not need to be root to do this, even though some checks will not be run otherwise. (Be aware that on, some systems, GNU Libtool will break these checks. If you get some failures, try reconfiguring the project providing the '--disable-fast-install' flag to 'configure' and then rebuild and recheck.)

Configuration flags

The most common, standard flags given to 'configure' are:

--prefix=directory

Possible values: Any path

Default: /usr/local

Specifies where the program (binaries and all associated files) will be installed.
--sysconfdir=directory

Possible values: Any path

Default: /usr/local/etc

Specifies where the installed programs will look for configuration files. '/atf' will be appended to the given path unless ATF_CONFSUBDIR is redefined as explained later on.
--help

Shows information about all available flags and exits immediately, without running any configuration tasks.

The following environment variables are specific to ATF's 'configure' script:

ATF_BUILD_CC

Possible values: empty, a absolute or relative path to a C compiler.

Default: the value of CC as detected by the configure script.

Specifies the C compiler that ATF will use at run time whenever the build-time-specific checks are used.
ATF_BUILD_CFLAGS

Possible values: empty, a list of valid C compiler flags.

Default: the value of CFLAGS as detected by the configure script.

Specifies the C compiler flags that ATF will use at run time whenever the build-time-specific checks are used.
ATF_BUILD_CPP

Possible values: empty, a absolute or relative path to a C/C++ preprocessor.

Default: the value of CPP as detected by the configure script.

Specifies the C/C++ preprocessor that ATF will use at run time whenever the build-time-specific checks are used.
ATF_BUILD_CPPFLAGS

Possible values: empty, a list of valid C/C++ preprocessor flags.

Default: the value of CPPFLAGS as detected by the configure script.

Specifies the C/C++ preprocessor flags that ATF will use at run time whenever the build-time-specific checks are used.
ATF_BUILD_CXX

Possible values: empty, a absolute or relative path to a C++ compiler.

Default: the value of CXX as detected by the configure script.

Specifies the C++ compiler that ATF will use at run time whenever the build-time-specific checks are used.
ATF_BUILD_CXXFLAGS

Possible values: empty, a list of valid C++ compiler flags.

Default: the value of CXXFLAGS as detected by the configure script.

Specifies the C++ compiler flags that ATF will use at run time whenever the build-time-specific checks are used.
ATF_CONFSUBDIR

Possible values: empty, a relative path.

Default: atf.

Specifies the subdirectory of the configuration directory (given by the --sysconfdir argument) under which ATF will search for its configuration files.
ATF_M4

Possible values: empty, absolute path to a M4 macro processor.

Default: empty.

Specifies the M4 macro processor that ATF will use at run time to generate GNU Automake files. If empty, the configure script will try to find a suitable M4 implementation for you.
ATF_SHELL

Possible values: empty, absolute path to a POSIX shell interpreter.

Default: empty.

Specifies the POSIX shell interpreter that ATF will use at run time to execute its scripts and the test programs written using the atf-sh library. If empty, the configure script will try to find a suitable interpreter for you.
ATF_WORKDIR

Possible values: empty, an absolute path.

Default: /tmp or /var/tmp, depending on availability.

Specifies the directory that ATF will use to place its temporary files and work directories for test cases. This is just a default and can be overriden at run time.
LINKS

Possible values: absolute path.

Default: links.

Specifies the program name or the absolute path of the 'links' application. Required when --enable-doc-build is used; otherwise ignored.
TIDY

Possible values: absolute path.

Default: tidy.

Specifies the program name or the absolute path of the 'tidy' tool. Required when --enable-doc-build is used; otherwise ignored.
XMLCATALOG

Possible values: absolute path.

Default: xmlcatalog.

Specifies the program name or the absolute path of the 'xmlcatalog' tool. Required when --enable-doc-build is used; otherwise ignored.
XML_CATALOG_FILE

Possible values: absolute path.

Default: /etc/xml/catalog

Specifies the path to the system-wide XML catalog used to lookup the required DTDs. The build will NOT perform any network access to load them. Required when --enable-doc-build is used; otherwise ignored.
XMLLINT

Possible values: absolute path.

Default: xmllint.

Specifies the program name or the absolute path of the 'xmllint' tool. Required when --enable-doc-build is used; otherwise ignored.
XSLTPROC

Possible values: absolute path.

Default: xsltproc.

Specifies the program name or the absolute path of the 'xsltproc' tool. Required when --enable-doc-build is used; otherwise ignored.

The following flags are specific to ATF's 'configure' script:

--enable-developer

Possible values: yes, no

Default: Depends on the version number. Stable versions define this to 'no' while all others have it set to 'yes'.

Enables several features useful for development, such as the inclusion of debugging symbols in all objects or the enabling of warnings during compilation.
--enable-doc-build

Possible values: yes, no

Default: no.

Enables the building of the XML documentation. This must be enabled in order to be able to generate a distribution file (aka run 'make dist'). Disabled by default because the toolchain required to enable this feature is pretty big, and not everyone needs it: the distribution files come with up-to-date, pregenerated documentation.
--enable-unstable-shared

Possible values: yes, no

Default: no.

Forces the building of shared libraries in addition to static ones. The build of shared libraries is currently disabled because their ABIs and APIs are unstable and subject to change. This flag is provided for development purposes only and will be removed once the libraries are stable enough.

Post-installation steps

After installing ATF, you have to register the DTDs it provides into the system-wide XML catalog. See the comments at the top of the files in ${datadir}/share/xml/atf to see the correct public identifiers. This directory will typically be /usr/local/share/xml/atf or /usr/share/xml/atf. Failure to do so will lead to further errors when processing the XML files generated by atf-report.