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1/* FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec
2 * Copyright (C) 2001-2009  Josh Coalson
3 * Copyright (C) 2011-2016  Xiph.Org Foundation
4 *
5 * This file is part the FLAC project.  FLAC is comprised of several
6 * components distributed under different licenses.  The codec libraries
7 * are distributed under Xiph.Org's BSD-like license (see the file
8 * COPYING.Xiph in this distribution).  All other programs, libraries, and
9 * plugins are distributed under the LGPL or GPL (see COPYING.LGPL and
10 * COPYING.GPL).  The documentation is distributed under the Gnu FDL (see
11 * COPYING.FDL).  Each file in the FLAC distribution contains at the top the
12 * terms under which it may be distributed.
13 *
14 * Since this particular file is relevant to all components of FLAC,
15 * it may be distributed under the Xiph.Org license, which is the least
16 * restrictive of those mentioned above.  See the file COPYING.Xiph in this
17 * distribution.
18 */
19
20
21FLAC is an Open Source lossless audio codec developed by Josh Coalson from 2001
22to 2009.
23
24From January 2012 FLAC is being maintained by Erik de Castro Lopo under the
25auspices of the Xiph.org Foundation.
26
27FLAC is comprised of
28  * `libFLAC', a library which implements reference encoders and
29    decoders for native FLAC and Ogg FLAC, and a metadata interface
30  * `libFLAC++', a C++ object wrapper library around libFLAC
31  * `flac', a command-line program for encoding and decoding files
32  * `metaflac', a command-line program for viewing and editing FLAC
33    metadata
34  * player plugin for XMMS
35  * user and API documentation
36
37The libraries (libFLAC, libFLAC++) are
38licensed under Xiph.org's BSD-like license (see COPYING.Xiph).  All other
39programs and plugins are licensed under the GNU General Public License
40(see COPYING.GPL).  The documentation is licensed under the GNU Free
41Documentation License (see COPYING.FDL).
42
43
44===============================================================================
45FLAC - 1.3.3 - Contents
46===============================================================================
47
48- Introduction
49- Prerequisites
50- Note to embedded developers
51- Building in a GNU environment
52- Building with Makefile.lite
53- Building with MSVC
54- Building on Mac OS X
55- Building with CMake
56
57
58===============================================================================
59Introduction
60===============================================================================
61
62This is the source release for the FLAC project.  See
63
64	doc/html/index.html
65
66for full documentation.
67
68A brief description of the directory tree:
69
70	doc/          the HTML documentation
71	examples/     example programs demonstrating the use of libFLAC and libFLAC++
72	include/      public include files for libFLAC and libFLAC++
73	man/          the man pages for `flac' and `metaflac'
74	src/          the source code and private headers
75	test/         the test scripts
76
77If you have questions about building FLAC that this document does not answer,
78please submit them at the following tracker so this document can be improved:
79
80	https://sourceforge.net/p/flac/support-requests/
81
82
83===============================================================================
84Prerequisites
85===============================================================================
86
87To build FLAC with support for Ogg FLAC you must have built and installed
88libogg according to the specific instructions below.  You must have
89libogg 1.1.2 or greater, or there will be seeking problems with Ogg FLAC.
90
91If you are building on x86 and want the assembly optimizations, you will
92need to have NASM >= 0.98.30 installed according to the specific instructions
93below.
94
95
96===============================================================================
97Note to embedded developers
98===============================================================================
99
100libFLAC has grown larger over time as more functionality has been
101included, but much of it may be unnecessary for a particular embedded
102implementation.  Unused parts may be pruned by some simple editing of
103configure.ac and src/libFLAC/Makefile.am; the following dependency
104graph shows which modules may be pruned without breaking things
105further down:
106
107metadata.h
108	stream_decoder.h
109	format.h
110
111stream_encoder.h
112	stream_decoder.h
113	format.h
114
115stream_decoder.h
116	format.h
117
118In other words, for pure decoding applications, both the stream encoder
119and metadata editing interfaces can be safely removed.
120
121There is a section dedicated to embedded use in the libFLAC API
122HTML documentation (see doc/html/api/index.html).
123
124Also, there are several places in the libFLAC code with comments marked
125with "OPT:" where a #define can be changed to enable code that might be
126faster on a specific platform.  Experimenting with these can yield faster
127binaries.
128
129
130===============================================================================
131Building in a GNU environment
132===============================================================================
133
134FLAC uses autoconf and libtool for configuring and building.
135Better documentation for these will be forthcoming, but in
136general, this should work:
137
138./configure && make && make check && make install
139
140The 'make check' step is optional; omit it to skip all the tests,
141which can take several hours and use around 70-80 megs of disk space.
142Even though it will stop with an explicit message on any failure, it
143does print out a lot of stuff so you might want to capture the output
144to a file if you're having a problem.  Also, don't run 'make check'
145as root because it confuses some of the tests.
146
147NOTE: Despite our best efforts it's entirely possible to have
148problems when using older versions of autoconf, automake, or
149libtool.  If you have the latest versions and still can't get it
150to work, see the next section on Makefile.lite.
151
152There are a few FLAC-specific arguments you can give to
153`configure':
154
155--enable-debug : Builds everything with debug symbols and some
156extra (and more verbose) error checking.
157
158--disable-asm-optimizations : Disables the compilation of the
159assembly routines.  Many routines have assembly versions for
160speed and `configure' is pretty good about knowing what is
161supported, but you can use this option to build only from the
162C sources.  May be necessary for building on OS X (Intel).
163
164--enable-sse : If you are building for an x86 CPU that supports
165SSE instructions, you can enable some of the faster routines
166if your operating system also supports SSE instructions.  flac
167can tell if the CPU supports the instructions but currently has
168no way to test if the OS does, so if it does, you must pass
169this argument to configure to use the SSE routines.  If flac
170crashes when built with this option you will have to go back and
171configure without --enable-sse.  Note that
172--disable-asm-optimizations implies --disable-sse.
173
174--enable-local-xmms-plugin : Installs the FLAC XMMS plugin in
175$HOME/.xmms/Plugins, instead of the global XMMS plugin area
176(usually /usr/lib/xmms/Input).
177
178--with-ogg=
179--with-xmms-prefix=
180--with-libiconv-prefix=
181Use these if you have these packages but configure can't find them.
182
183If you want to build completely from scratch (i.e. starting with just
184configure.ac and Makefile.am) you should be able to just run 'autogen.sh'
185but make sure and read the comments in that file first.
186
187
188===============================================================================
189Building with Makefile.lite
190===============================================================================
191
192There is a more lightweight build system for do-it-yourself-ers.
193It is also useful if configure isn't working, which may be the
194case since lately we've had some problems with different versions
195of automake and libtool.  The Makefile.lite system should work
196on GNU systems with few or no adjustments.
197
198From the top level just 'make -f Makefile.lite'.  You can
199specify zero or one optional target from 'release', 'debug',
200'test', or 'clean'.  The default is 'release'.  There is no
201'install' target but everything you need will end up in the
202obj/ directory.
203
204If you are not on an x86 system or you don't have nasm, you
205may have to change the DEFINES in src/libFLAC/Makefile.lite.  If
206you don't have nasm, remove -DFLAC__HAS_NASM.  If your target is
207not an x86, change -DFLAC__CPU_IA32 to -DFLAC__CPU_UNKNOWN.
208
209
210===============================================================================
211Building with MSVC
212===============================================================================
213
214There are .vcproj projects and a master FLAC.sln solution to build all
215the libraries and executables with MSVC 2005 or newer.
216
217Prerequisite: you must have the Ogg libraries installed as described
218later.
219
220Prerequisite: you must have nasm installed, and nasm.exe must be in
221your PATH, or the path to nasm.exe must be added to the list of
222directories for executable files in the MSVC global options.
223
224To build everything, run Visual Studio, do File|Open and open FLAC.sln.
225From the dropdown in the toolbar, select "Release" instead of "Debug",
226then do Build|Build Solution.
227
228This will build all libraries both statically (e.g.
229objs\release\lib\libFLAC_static.lib) and as DLLs (e.g.
230objs\release\lib\libFLAC.dll), and it will build all binaries, statically
231linked (e.g. objs\release\bin\flac.exe).
232
233Everything will end up in the "objs" directory.  DLLs and .exe files
234are all that are needed and can be copied to an installation area and
235added to the PATH.
236
237By default the code is configured with Ogg support. Before building FLAC
238you will need to get the Ogg source distribution
239(see http://xiph.org/downloads/), build libogg_static.lib (load
240win32\libogg_static.sln, change solution configuration to "Release" and
241code generation to "Multi-threaded (/MT)", then build), copy libogg_static.lib
242into FLAC's 'objs\release\lib' directory, and copy the entire include\ogg tree
243into FLAC's 'include' directory (so that there is an 'ogg' directory in FLAC's
244'include' directory with the files ogg.h, os_types.h and config_types.h).
245
246If you want to build without Ogg support, instead edit all .vcproj files
247and remove any "FLAC__HAS_OGG" definitions.
248
249
250===============================================================================
251Building on Mac OS X
252===============================================================================
253
254If you have Fink or a recent version of OS X with the proper autotools,
255the GNU flow above should work.
256
257
258===============================================================================
259Building with CMake
260===============================================================================
261
262CMake is a cross-platform build system. FLAC can be built on Windows, Linux, Mac
263OS X using CMake.
264
265You can use either CMake's CLI or GUI. We recommend you to have a separate build
266folder outside the repository in order to not spoil it with generated files.
267
268CLI
269---
270   Go to your build folder and run something like this:
271
272   /path/to/flac/build$ cmake /path/to/flac/source
273
274   or e.g. in Windows shell
275
276   C:\path\to\flac\build> cmake \path\to\flac\source
277   (provided that cmake is in your %PATH% variable)
278
279   That will generate build scripts for the default build system (e.g. Makefiles
280   for UNIX). After that you start build with a command like this:
281
282   /path/to/flac/build$ make
283
284   And afterwards you can run tests or install the built libraries and headers
285
286   /path/to/flac/build$ make test
287   /path/to/flac/build$ make install
288
289   If you want use a build system other than default add -G flag to cmake, e.g.:
290
291   /path/to/flac/build$ cmake /path/to/flac/source -GNinja
292   /path/to/flac/build$ ninja
293
294   or:
295
296   /path/to/flac/build$ cmake /path/to/flac/source -GXcode
297
298   Use cmake --help to see the list of available generators.
299
300   If you have OGG on your system you can tell CMake to use it:
301
302   /path/to/flac/build$ cmake /path/to/flac/source -DWITH_OGG=ON
303
304   If CMake fails to find it you can help CMake by specifying the exact path:
305
306   /path/to/flac/build$ cmake /path/to/flac/source -DWITH_OGG=ON -DOGG_ROOT=/path/to/ogg
307
308   CMake will search for OGG by default so if you don't have it you can tell
309   cmake to not do so:
310
311   /path/to/flac/build$ cmake /path/to/flac/source -DWITH_OGG=OFF
312
313   Other FLAC's options (e.g. building C++ lib or docs) can also be put to cmake
314   through -D flag.
315
316GUI
317---
318   It is likely that you would prefer to use it on Windows building for Visual
319   Studio.  It's in essence the same process as building using CLI.
320
321   Open cmake-gui. In the window select a source directory (the repository's
322   root), a build directory (some other directory outside the repository). Then
323   press button "Configure". CMake will ask you which build system you prefer.
324   Choose that version of Visual Studio which you have on your system, choose
325   whether you want to build for x86 or amd64. Press OK. After CMake finishes
326   press "Generate" button, and after that "Open Project". In response CMake
327   will launch Visual Studio and open the generated solution. You can use it as
328   usual but remember that it was generated by CMake. That means that your
329   changes (e.g. some addidional compile flags) will be lost when you run CMake
330   next time.
331
332   Again, if you have OGG on your system set WITH_OGG flag in the list of
333   variables in cmake-gui window before you press "Configure".
334
335   If CMake fails to find MSVC compiler then running cmake-gui from MS Developer
336   comand prompt should help.
337