7 II. Rebuilding the configure scripts
8 III. Using scripts/makefile*
10 V. Directory structure
11 VI. Building with project files
12 VII. Building with makefiles
13 VIII. Configuring libpng for 16-bit platforms
14 IX. Configuring for DOS
15 X. Configuring for Medium Model
16 XI. Prepending a prefix to exported symbols
17 XII. Configuring for compiler xxx:
18 XIII. Removing unwanted object code
19 XIV. Changes to the build and configuration of libpng in libpng-1.5.x
20 XV. Setjmp/longjmp issues
21 XVI. Other sources of information about libpng
23 I. Simple installation
25 On Unix/Linux and similar systems, you can simply type
27 ./configure [--prefix=/path]
31 and ignore the rest of this document. "/path" is the path to the directory
32 where you want to install the libpng "lib", "include", and "bin"
35 If you downloaded a GIT clone, you will need to run ./autogen.sh before
36 running ./configure, to create "configure" and "Makefile.in" which are
37 not included in the GIT repository.
39 Note that "configure" is only included in the "*.tar" distributions and not
40 in the "*.zip" or "*.7z" distributions. If you downloaded one of those
41 distributions, see "Building with project files" or "Building with makefiles",
44 II. Rebuilding the configure scripts
46 If configure does not work on your system, or if you have a need to
47 change configure.ac or Makefile.am, and you have a reasonably
48 up-to-date set of tools, running ./autogen.sh in a git clone before
49 running ./configure may fix the problem. To be really sure that you
50 aren't using any of the included pre-built scripts, you can do this:
52 ./configure --enable-maintainer-mode
54 ./autogen.sh --maintainer --clean
55 ./autogen.sh --maintainer
56 ./configure [--prefix=/path] [other options]
61 III. Using scripts/makefile*
63 Instead, you can use one of the custom-built makefiles in the
66 cp scripts/pnglibconf.h.prebuilt pnglibconf.h
67 cp scripts/makefile.system makefile
71 The files that are presently available in the scripts directory
72 are listed and described in scripts/README.txt.
74 Or you can use one of the "projects" in the "projects" directory.
76 Before installing libpng, you must first install zlib, if it
77 is not already on your system. zlib can usually be found
78 wherever you got libpng; otherwise go to http://zlib.net. You can place
79 zlib in in the same directory as libpng or in another directory.
81 If your system already has a preinstalled zlib you will still need
82 to have access to the zlib.h and zconf.h include files that
83 correspond to the version of zlib that's installed.
85 If you wish to test with a particular zlib that is not first in the
86 standard library search path, put ZLIBLIB, ZLIBINC, CPPFLAGS, LDFLAGS,
87 and LD_LIBRARY_PATH in your environment before running "make test"
90 ZLIBLIB=/path/to/lib export ZLIBLIB
91 ZLIBINC=/path/to/include export ZLIBINC
92 CPPFLAGS="-I$ZLIBINC" export CPPFLAGS
93 LDFLAGS="-L$ZLIBLIB" export LDFLAGS
94 LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$ZLIBLIB:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
96 If you are using one of the makefile scripts, put ZLIBLIB and ZLIBINC
97 in your environment and type "make ZLIBLIB=$ZLIBLIB ZLIBINC=$ZLIBINC test".
101 If you want to use "cmake" (see www.cmake.org), type
103 cmake . -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/path
107 As when using the simple configure method described above, "/path" points to
108 the installation directory where you want to put the libpng "lib", "include",
109 and "bin" subdirectories.
111 V. Directory structure
113 You can rename the directories that you downloaded (they
114 might be called "libpng-x.y.z" or "libpngNN" and "zlib-1.2.8"
115 or "zlib128") so that you have directories called "zlib" and "libpng".
117 Your directory structure should look like this:
119 .. (the parent directory)
120 libpng (this directory)
123 *.h, *.c => libpng source files
124 CMakeLists.txt => "cmake" script
126 configure.ac, configure, Makefile.am, Makefile.in,
127 autogen.sh, config.guess, ltmain.sh, missing, libpng.pc.in,
128 libpng-config.in, aclocal.m4, config.h.in, config.sub,
129 depcomp, install-sh, mkinstalldirs, test-pngtest.sh
131 arm-neon, conftest, examples, gregbook, libtests, pngminim,
132 pngminus, pngsuite, tools, visupng
134 cbuilder5, owatcom, visualc71, vstudio, xcode
137 *.def (module definition files)
142 README, *.h, *.c contrib, etc.
144 If the line endings in the files look funny, you may wish to get the other
145 distribution of libpng. It is available in both tar.gz (UNIX style line
146 endings) and zip (DOS style line endings) formats.
148 VI. Building with project files
150 If you are building libpng with MSVC, you can enter the
151 libpng projects\visualc71 or vstudio directory and follow the instructions
154 Otherwise enter the zlib directory and follow the instructions in zlib/README,
155 then come back here and run "configure" or choose the appropriate
156 makefile.sys in the scripts directory.
158 VII. Building with makefiles
160 Copy the file (or files) that you need from the
161 scripts directory into this directory, for example
163 MSDOS example: copy scripts\makefile.msc makefile
164 copy scripts\pnglibconf.h.prebuilt pnglibconf.h
165 UNIX example: cp scripts/makefile.std makefile
166 cp scripts/pnglibconf.h.prebuilt pnglibconf.h
168 Read the makefile to see if you need to change any source or
169 target directories to match your preferences.
171 Then read pnglibconf.dfa to see if you want to make any configuration
174 Then just run "make" which will create the libpng library in
175 this directory and "make test" which will run a quick test that reads
176 the "pngtest.png" file and writes a "pngout.png" file that should be
177 identical to it. Look for "9782 zero samples" in the output of the
178 test. For more confidence, you can run another test by typing
179 "pngtest pngnow.png" and looking for "289 zero samples" in the output.
180 Also, you can run "pngtest -m contrib/pngsuite/*.png" and compare
181 your output with the result shown in contrib/pngsuite/README.
183 Most of the makefiles will allow you to run "make install" to
184 put the library in its final resting place (if you want to
185 do that, run "make install" in the zlib directory first if necessary).
186 Some also allow you to run "make test-installed" after you have
189 VIII. Configuring libpng for 16-bit platforms
191 You will want to look into zconf.h to tell zlib (and thus libpng) that
192 it cannot allocate more than 64K at a time. Even if you can, the memory
193 won't be accessible. So limit zlib and libpng to 64K by defining MAXSEG_64K.
195 IX. Configuring for DOS
197 For DOS users who only have access to the lower 640K, you will
198 have to limit zlib's memory usage via a png_set_compression_mem_level()
199 call. See zlib.h or zconf.h in the zlib library for more information.
201 X. Configuring for Medium Model
203 Libpng's support for medium model has been tested on most of the popular
204 compilers. Make sure MAXSEG_64K gets defined, USE_FAR_KEYWORD gets
205 defined, and FAR gets defined to far in pngconf.h, and you should be
206 all set. Everything in the library (except for zlib's structure) is
207 expecting far data. You must use the typedefs with the p or pp on
208 the end for pointers (or at least look at them and be careful). Make
209 note that the rows of data are defined as png_bytepp, which is
210 an "unsigned char far * far *".
212 XI. Prepending a prefix to exported symbols
214 Starting with libpng-1.6.0, you can configure libpng (when using the
215 "configure" script) to prefix all exported symbols by means of the
216 configuration option "--with-libpng-prefix=FOO_", where FOO_ can be any
217 string beginning with a letter and containing only uppercase
218 and lowercase letters, digits, and the underscore (i.e., a C language
219 identifier). This creates a set of macros in pnglibconf.h, so this is
220 transparent to applications; their function calls get transformed by
221 the macros to use the modified names.
223 XII. Configuring for compiler xxx:
225 All includes for libpng are in pngconf.h. If you need to add, change
226 or delete an include, this is the place to do it.
227 The includes that are not needed outside libpng are placed in pngpriv.h,
228 which is only used by the routines inside libpng itself.
229 The files in libpng proper only include pngpriv.h and png.h, which
230 in turn includes pngconf.h and, as of libpng-1.5.0, pnglibconf.h.
231 As of libpng-1.5.0, pngpriv.h also includes three other private header
232 files, pngstruct.h, pnginfo.h, and pngdebug.h, which contain material
233 that previously appeared in the public headers.
235 XIII. Removing unwanted object code
237 There are a bunch of #define's in pngconf.h that control what parts of
238 libpng are compiled. All the defines end in _SUPPORTED. If you are
239 never going to use a capability, you can change the #define to #undef
240 before recompiling libpng and save yourself code and data space, or
241 you can turn off individual capabilities with defines that begin with
244 In libpng-1.5.0 and later, the #define's are in pnglibconf.h instead.
246 You can also turn all of the transforms and ancillary chunk capabilities
247 off en masse with compiler directives that define
248 PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_TRANSFORMS, or PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_ANCILLARY_CHUNKS,
249 or all four, along with directives to turn on any of the capabilities that
250 you do want. The PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_TRANSFORMS directives disable the
251 extra transformations but still leave the library fully capable of reading
252 and writing PNG files with all known public chunks. Use of the
253 PNG_NO_READ[or WRITE]_ANCILLARY_CHUNKS directive produces a library
254 that is incapable of reading or writing ancillary chunks. If you are
255 not using the progressive reading capability, you can turn that off
256 with PNG_NO_PROGRESSIVE_READ (don't confuse this with the INTERLACING
257 capability, which you'll still have).
259 All the reading and writing specific code are in separate files, so the
260 linker should only grab the files it needs. However, if you want to
261 make sure, or if you are building a stand alone library, all the
262 reading files start with "pngr" and all the writing files start with "pngw".
263 The files that don't match either (like png.c, pngtrans.c, etc.)
264 are used for both reading and writing, and always need to be included.
265 The progressive reader is in pngpread.c
267 If you are creating or distributing a dynamically linked library (a .so
268 or DLL file), you should not remove or disable any parts of the library,
269 as this will cause applications linked with different versions of the
270 library to fail if they call functions not available in your library.
271 The size of the library itself should not be an issue, because only
272 those sections that are actually used will be loaded into memory.
274 XIV. Changes to the build and configuration of libpng in libpng-1.5.x
276 Details of internal changes to the library code can be found in the CHANGES
277 file and in the GIT repository logs. These will be of no concern to the vast
278 majority of library users or builders; however, the few who configure libpng
279 to a non-default feature set may need to change how this is done.
281 There should be no need for library builders to alter build scripts if
282 these use the distributed build support - configure or the makefiles -
283 however, users of the makefiles may care to update their build scripts
284 to build pnglibconf.h where the corresponding makefile does not do so.
286 Building libpng with a non-default configuration has changed completely.
287 The old method using pngusr.h should still work correctly even though the
288 way pngusr.h is used in the build has been changed; however, library
289 builders will probably want to examine the changes to take advantage of
290 new capabilities and to simplify their build system.
292 A. Specific changes to library configuration capabilities
294 The exact mechanism used to control attributes of API functions has
295 changed. A single set of operating system independent macro definitions
296 is used and operating system specific directives are defined in
299 As part of this the mechanism used to choose procedure call standards on
300 those systems that allow a choice has been changed. At present this only
301 affects certain Microsoft (DOS, Windows) and IBM (OS/2) operating systems
302 running on Intel processors. As before, PNGAPI is defined where required
303 to control the exported API functions; however, two new macros, PNGCBAPI
304 and PNGCAPI, are used instead for callback functions (PNGCBAPI) and
305 (PNGCAPI) for functions that must match a C library prototype (currently
306 only png_longjmp_ptr, which must match the C longjmp function.) The new
307 approach is documented in pngconf.h
309 Despite these changes, libpng 1.5.0 only supports the native C function
310 calling standard on those platforms tested so far (__cdecl on Microsoft
311 Windows). This is because the support requirements for alternative
312 calling conventions seem to no longer exist. Developers who find it
313 necessary to set PNG_API_RULE to 1 should advise the mailing list
314 (png-mng-implement) of this and library builders who use Openwatcom and
315 therefore set PNG_API_RULE to 2 should also contact the mailing list.
317 B. Changes to the configuration mechanism
319 Prior to libpng-1.5.0 library builders who needed to configure libpng
320 had either to modify the exported pngconf.h header file to add system
321 specific configuration or had to write feature selection macros into
322 pngusr.h and cause this to be included into pngconf.h by defining
323 PNG_USER_CONFIG. The latter mechanism had the disadvantage that an
324 application built without PNG_USER_CONFIG defined would see the
325 unmodified, default, libpng API and thus would probably fail to link.
327 These mechanisms still work in the configure build and in any makefile
328 build that builds pnglibconf.h, although the feature selection macros
329 have changed somewhat as described above. In 1.5.0, however, pngusr.h is
330 processed only once, at the time the exported header file pnglibconf.h is
331 built. pngconf.h no longer includes pngusr.h; therefore, pngusr.h is ignored
332 after the build of pnglibconf.h and it is never included in an application
335 The formerly used alternative of adding a list of feature macros to the
336 CPPFLAGS setting in the build also still works; however, the macros will be
337 copied to pnglibconf.h and this may produce macro redefinition warnings
338 when the individual C files are compiled.
340 All configuration now only works if pnglibconf.h is built from
341 scripts/pnglibconf.dfa. This requires the program awk. Brian Kernighan
342 (the original author of awk) maintains C source code of that awk and this
343 and all known later implementations (often called by subtly different
344 names - nawk and gawk for example) are adequate to build pnglibconf.h.
345 The Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) program 'awk' is an earlier version
346 and does not work; this may also apply to other systems that have a
347 functioning awk called 'nawk'.
349 Configuration options are now documented in scripts/pnglibconf.dfa. This
350 file also includes dependency information that ensures a configuration is
351 consistent; that is, if a feature is switched off, dependent features are
352 also switched off. As a recommended alternative to using feature macros in
353 pngusr.h a system builder may also define equivalent options in pngusr.dfa
354 (or, indeed, any file) and add that to the configuration by setting
355 DFA_XTRA to the file name. The makefiles in contrib/pngminim illustrate
356 how to do this, and also illustrate a case where pngusr.h is still required.
358 After you have built libpng, the definitions that were recorded in
359 pnglibconf.h are available to your application (pnglibconf.h is included
360 in png.h and gets installed alongside png.h and pngconf.h in your
361 $PREFIX/include directory). Do not edit pnglibconf.h after you have built
362 libpng, because than the settings would not accurately reflect the settings
363 that were used to build libpng.
365 XV. Setjmp/longjmp issues
367 Libpng uses setjmp()/longjmp() for error handling. Unfortunately setjmp()
368 is known to be not thread-safe on some platforms and we don't know of
369 any platform where it is guaranteed to be thread-safe. Therefore, if
370 your application is going to be using multiple threads, you should
371 configure libpng with PNG_NO_SETJMP in your pngusr.dfa file, with
372 -DPNG_NO_SETJMP on your compile line, or with
374 #undef PNG_SETJMP_SUPPORTED
376 in your pnglibconf.h or pngusr.h.
378 Starting with libpng-1.6.0, the library included a "simplified API".
379 This requires setjmp/longjmp, so you must either build the library
380 with PNG_SETJMP_SUPPORTED defined, or with PNG_SIMPLIFIED_READ_SUPPORTED
381 and PNG_SIMPLIFIED_WRITE_SUPPORTED undefined.
383 XVI. Other sources of information about libpng:
385 Further information can be found in the README and libpng-manual.txt
386 files, in the individual makefiles, in png.h, and the manual pages
389 Using the ./configure script -- 16 December 2002.
390 =================================================
392 The ./configure script should work compatibly with what scripts/makefile.*
393 did, however there are some options you might need to add to configure
394 explicitly, which previously was done semi-automatically (if you didn't edit
395 scripts/makefile.* yourself, that is)
397 CFLAGS="-Wall -O -funroll-loops \
398 -malign-loops=2 -malign-functions=2" ./configure --prefix=/usr/include \
399 --with-pkgconfigdir=/usr/lib/pkgconfig --includedir=/usr/include
401 You can alternatively specify --includedir=/usr/include, /usr/local/include,
402 /usr/include/libpng16, or whatever.
404 If you find that the configure script is out-of-date or is not supporting
405 your platform properly, try running autogen.sh to regenerate "configure",
406 "Makefile.in", and the other configuration files. Then try configure again.