which are derived from $prefix, so "make all; make prefix=/usr
install" would not work.
+The beginning of the Makefile documents many variables that affect the way
+git is built. You can override them either from the command line, or in a
+config.mak file.
+
Alternatively you can use autoconf generated ./configure script to
set up install paths (via config.mak.autogen), so you can write instead
Interactive Tools package still can install "git", but you can build it
with --disable-transition option to avoid this.
- - You can use git after building but without installing if you
- wanted to. Various git commands need to find other git
- commands and scripts to do their work, so you would need to
- arrange a few environment variables to tell them that their
- friends will be found in your built source area instead of at
- their standard installation area. Something like this works
- for me:
+ - You can use git after building but without installing if you want
+ to test drive it. Simply run git found in bin-wrappers directory
+ in the build directory, or prepend that directory to your $PATH.
+ This however is less efficient than running an installed git, as
+ you always need an extra fork+exec to run any git subcommand.
+
+ It is still possible to use git without installing by setting a few
+ environment variables, which was the way this was done
+ traditionally. But using git found in bin-wrappers directory in
+ the build directory is far simpler. As a historical reference, the
+ old way went like this:
GIT_EXEC_PATH=`pwd`
PATH=`pwd`:$PATH
export GIT_EXEC_PATH PATH GITPERLLIB
- Git is reasonably self-sufficient, but does depend on a few external
- programs and libraries:
+ programs and libraries. Git can be used without most of them by adding
+ the approriate "NO_<LIBRARY>=YesPlease" to the make command line or
+ config.mak file.
- "zlib", the compression library. Git won't build without it.
- "Perl" is needed to use some of the features (e.g. preparing a
partial commit using "git add -i/-p", interacting with svn
- repositories with "git svn").
+ repositories with "git svn"). If you can live without these, use
+ NO_PERL.
- - "openssl". Unless you specify otherwise, you'll get the SHA1
- library from here.
+ - "openssl" library is used by git-imap-send to use IMAP over SSL.
+ If you don't need it, use NO_OPENSSL.
- If you don't have openssl, you can use one of the SHA1 libraries
- that come with git (git includes one inspired by Mozilla's and a
- PowerPC optimized one too - see the Makefile).
+ By default, git uses OpenSSL for SHA1 but it will use it's own
+ library (inspired by Mozilla's) with either NO_OPENSSL or
+ BLK_SHA1. Also included is a version optimized for PowerPC
+ (PPC_SHA1).
- - libcurl library; git-http-fetch and git-fetch use them. You
+ - "libcurl" library is used by git-http-fetch and git-fetch. You
might also want the "curl" executable for debugging purposes.
- If you do not use http transfer, you are probably OK if you
- do not have them.
+ If you do not use http:// or https:// repositories, you do not
+ have to have them (use NO_CURL).
- - expat library; git-http-push uses it for remote lock
- management over DAV. Similar to "curl" above, this is optional.
+ - "expat" library; git-http-push uses it for remote lock
+ management over DAV. Similar to "curl" above, this is optional
+ (with NO_EXPAT).
- - "wish", the Tcl/Tk windowing shell is used in gitk to show the
- history graphically, and in git-gui.
+ - "wish", the Tcl/Tk windowing shell is used in gitk to show the
+ history graphically, and in git-gui. If you don't want gitk or
+ git-gui, you can use NO_TCLTK.
- Some platform specific issues are dealt with Makefile rules,
but depending on your specific installation, you may not