3 FAQ - GNU LilyPond FAQs
7 Some questions that have been answered before.
11 Q: I get all kinds of errors while compiling parser.cc
13 A: LilyPond uses features of bison version 1.25. Please confirm that
14 you are using a version 1.25 or better. If the problem persists, then
18 =head2 Language: mudela
20 Q: Why can't you type C<#c> in stead of C<cis> ?
22 A: We think that C<#c> looks as if you are entering the symbols to
23 print (which you are not; remember, you're entering the musical
26 We're not sure on leaving out this feature. If you think this is a
27 good idea, please let us know.
29 Be warned we will I<not> allow you to leave out the C<#> if the note
30 already has an accidental. We won't allow
44 to make a few chords, but why do I have to type
47 < { a~ e } { c ~ g } >
53 to generate ties between the chords?
61 < { a } { c } > < { e } { g } >
63 Ties have to be confined to `voices', and the a and the e are in
64 different {} blocks, so they are in different voices. You should view
65 the desired construct as a "generalised chord" (two voices stacked
66 vertically). It might help you visualise this by using the following
73 Q: and where do the beams come into this picture?
75 A: Beams are voicegroup-wide, and may be entered in any part of the
78 < { [a ~ e] } { c ~ g } >
79 < { [a ~ e } { c ~ g] } >
80 < { [a ~ e] } { [c ~ g] } >
82 These all give the same result.
84 Q: Why are [] around the notes, and () inbetween?
86 A: [] designate beams, a note can only be in one beam at the same
87 time. () is a slur, which connects notes. You need to be able to
92 Q: Why shouldn't I put all commands (\clef, \meter) inside the music?
94 A: You should do what you like, but at some time we will enable
95 quoting of music ("Stichnoten"). Besides if you are going to type an
96 orchestral score, then you'd probably want to enter most of the meter,
97 repeat commands only once.
99 Q: I want to insert some TeX commands
101 A: You shouldn't: it's against LilyPond philosophy to have typesetting
102 commands in the mudela source. Moreover, this would be difficult. The
103 manner in which Request (the basic building blocks of mudela) are
104 translated into printable items is complex: it is not always possible
105 to associate one Request with one Item or Spanner.
114 Q: Could you implement feature XXXX? It is really easy, just extend
115 the syntax to allow YYYY!
117 A: If it is reasonable, I'll add XXXX to the TODO list. In general
118 finding a cute syntax (such as YYYY) isn't very hard. The complicated
119 issue how to adapt the internals to do XXXX. The parser is really a
120 simple front end to the complicated internals.
122 Q: Why do I need g++ >= 2.7?
124 A: By using g++, GNU LilyPond is portable to all platforms which support
125 g++ (there are quite a few). Not having to support other compilers
126 saves us a I<lot> of trouble. GNU LilyPond and FlowerLib use:
136 64 bit integral type long long
144 operator <?, operator >?
152 class Rational (libg++)
160 can't load library 'libflower.so'
162 A: You are using the dynamically compiled Flower library. Please set
163 LD_LIBRARY_PATH to a directory containing F<libflower.so>
167 Q: I want a DOS/NT/W95 port.
169 A.0: Reconsider. Try Linux. It's fun!
171 A.1: Currently (patchlevel 27), GNU LilyPond (and flowerLib) compiles, links
172 and runs on windhoos-nt, using the cygnus gnu port (release b17.1).
173 I (JCN) only had to make a minor workaround for missing library calls.
174 Have a look at http://www.cygnus.com/gnu-win32. To make GNU LilyPond type
175 C<make $OSTYPE>. (I am not promising to maintain this platform, it is just
176 that when having to use doze, i-m sometimes too lazy to reboot.)
178 A.2: I haven't had time to find a GCC crosscompiler (I<with> g++ and
179 libg++, mind you) to DOS/win (in rpm, please :).
182 Q: I-m dozed enough to run the (sometimes bit stale) .exe-s you distribute.
183 Why do i need cygwin.dll?
185 A: It-s all in this cut-n-paste:
187 Minimalist GNU-Win32 Readme
190 Colin Peters <colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp>
194 0.3 Fixes and Improvements
197 In the "coming soon" category I have a version of the GNU Standard C++
198 library ported to Mingw32. This means you can use iostreams, complex
199 numbers and all those neat STL (Standard Template Library) things
200 without needing the Cygwin DLL. I hope to put this port up for
201 downloading soon (along with the source of course).
207 To add C++ Support to the above the following extra files are required:
209 In C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-
213 Note that this does not include support for the standard C++ libraries
214 (only the C run time libraries) or for iostreams. That support is still
215 only available with the Cygwin32 API.