- Building on Windows using Microsoft Visual C++
- Building on UNIX/Linux/Mac OS X platforms
- Building on Windows using Cygwin
- Building on Windows using Borland C++
- Building on Windows using Borland C++ Builder
- Building 64 bit libraries on Windows using Intel C++

| Building on Windows using Microsoft Visual C++ |

Xerces-C++ source distribution comes with Microsoft Visual C++ projects and solutions to help you build Xerces-C++. The following describes the steps you need to build Xerces-C++.

| Building Xerces-C++ library |

To build Xerces-C++ from the source distribution (using MSVC), you will need to open the solution containing the project. If you are building your application, you may want to add the Xerces-C++ project inside your application's solution.

The solutions containing the Xerces-C++ project files and all other samples are in the following sub-directories in the xerces-c-src_2_8_0 directory:

    (For VC6)   Projects\Win32\VC6\xerces-all\xerces-all.dsw
    (For VC7.1) Projects\Win32\VC7.1\xerces-all\xerces-all.sln
    (For VC8)   Projects\Win32\VC8\xerces-all\xerces-all.sln

Once you have the solution open, you need to build the project marked XercesLib. You can select Debug/Release, Static/DLL, and, for VC8, 32/64 bit builds using the Configuration Manager dialog.

If you want to include the Xerces-C++ project into your own solution, you need to pick up:

    (For VC6)   Projects\Win32\VC6\xerces-all\XercesLib\XercesLib.dsp
    (For VC7.1) Projects\Win32\VC7.1\xerces-all\XercesLib\XercesLib.vcproj
    (For VC8)   Projects\Win32\VC8\xerces-all\XercesLib\XercesLib.vcproj

You must make sure that you are linking your application with the xerces-c_2.lib library (or Debug/Static version of it and also make sure that the associated DLL is somewhere in your path.

| If you are linking your application to a static library, then you will need to compile your application with the XML_LIBRARY preprocessor define in order to turn off the DLL import/export mechanism. This is also the case for the Mingw-msys platform.

| If you are working on the AlphaWorks version which uses ICU, you must have the ICU data DLL named `icudata.dll` available from your path setting. For finding out where you can get ICU from and build it, look at the How to Build ICU.

| If the library is built with the ICU message loader, or message catalog loader, then you need to make sure the XERCESC_NLS_HOME environment variable points to the $XERCESCROOT/msg directory where the message files reside.

| Building samples |

| If you are using the source package, inside the same solution (xerces-all.dsw or xerces-all.sln), you'll find several other projects. These are for the samples. Select all the samples and right click on the selection. Then choose "Build (selection only)" to build all the samples in one shot.

| Building on UNIX/Linux/Mac OS X platforms |

Xerces-C++ uses GNU make to build the libraries and samples. You must first make sure you have GNU make installed on your system before proceeding. On some platforms GNU make is called gmake instead of make. If you do not have GNU make, ask your system administrator to get it for you.

Do not jump into the build directly before reading this.

Spending some time reading the following instructions will save you a lot of wasted time and support-related e-mail communication. The Xerces-C++ build instructions are a little different from normal product builds. Specifically, there are some wrapper-scripts that have been written to make life easier for you. You are free not to use these scripts and use the configure script and GNU Make directly, but we want to make sure you know what you are by-passing and what risks you are taking. So read the following instructions carefully before attempting to build it yourself.

Besides having all necessary build tools, you also need to know what compilers we have tested Xerces-C++ on. The following table lists the relevant platforms and compilers.

Operating System | Compiler
32-bit
Windows x86 | MS Visual C++ 7.1 (2003)
Windows x86 | MS Visual C++ 8.0 (2005)
Linux x86 | GCC 3.4.x or later
Solaris 10 x86 | GCC 3.4.x or later
Solaris 10 x86 | Sun C++ 5.7 (Studio 10) or later
Solaris 10 SPARC | GCC 3.4.x or later
Solaris 10 SPARC | Sun C++ 5.7 (Studio 10) or later
AIX 5.3 PowerPC | IBM XL C++ 7.0 or later
HP-UX 11i PA-RISC | HP aCC A.03.x
HP-UX 11i IA-64 | HP aCC A.06.x
MacOS X 10.4 "Tiger" x86 | GCC 4.0.x (Xcode 2.x) or later
MacOS X 10.4 "Tiger" PowerPC | GCC 4.0.x (Xcode 2.x) or later
64-bit
Windows x86-64 | MS Visual C++ 8.0 (2005)
Linux x86-64 | GCC 3.4.x or later
Solaris 10 x86-64 | GCC 3.4.x or later
Solaris 10 x86-64 | Sun C++ 5.7 (Studio 10) or later
Solaris 10 SPARC | GCC 3.4.x or later
Solaris 10 SPARC | Sun C++ 5.7 (Studio 10) or later
AIX 5.3 PowerPC | IBM XL C++ 7.0 or later
HP-UX 11i PA-RISC | HP aCC A.03.x
HP-UX 11i IA-64 | HP aCC A.06.x

While older platforms/compilers will most likely work, if you are not using any of these compilers, you are taking a calculated risk by exploring untested grounds. Your effort in making Xerces-C++ work on new platforms/compilers is greatly appreciated and any problems you face can be addressed on the Xerces-C++ mailing lists.

Differences between the UNIX platforms: The description below is generic, but as every programmer is aware, there are minor differences within the various UNIX flavors the world has been bestowed with. The one difference that you need to watch out in the discussion below, pertains to the system environment variable for finding libraries. On Linux and Solaris, the environment variable name is called `LD_LIBRARY_PATH`, on AIX it is `LIBPATH`, on Mac OS X it is `DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH`, while on HP-UX it is `SHLIB_PATH`. The following discussion assumes you are working on Linux, but it is with subtle understanding that you know how to interpret it for the other UNIX flavors.

| If you wish to build Xerces-C++ with ICU, look at the Building Xerces-C++ with ICU. It tells you where you can get ICU and how to build Xerces-C++ with it.

| Setting build environment variables |

Before doing the build, you must first set your environment variables to pick-up the compiler and also specify where you extracted Xerces-C++ on your machine. While the first one is probably set for you by the system administrator, just make sure you can invoke the compiler. You may do so by typing the compiler invocation command without any parameters (e.g. xlc_r, or g++, or cc) and check if you get a proper response back.

Next set your Xerces-C++ root path as follows:

    export XERCESCROOT=<full-path-to-xerces-c-src_2_8_0>

This should be the full path of the directory where you extracted Xerces-C++.

| Building Xerces-C++ library |

As mentioned earlier, to build Xerces-C++ from the source distribution, you will need GNU make.

If you look into the src/xercesc sub-directory in xerces-c-src_2_8_0, you will notice the familiar configure script. It is tempting to run this script directly as is normally the case, but wait a minute. Even if you are using the default compilers like gcc and g++ you need to export a few more environment variables before you can invoke configure.

Rather than make you to figure out what strange environment variables you need to use, we have provided you with a wrapper script that does the job for you. All you need to do is tell the script what your compiler is, and what options you are going to use inside your build, and the script does everything for you. Here is what the script takes as input:

    runConfigure: Helper script to run "configure" for one of the
                  supported platforms
    Usage: runConfigure "options"
           where options may be any of the following:
           -p <platform> (accepts 'aix', 'beos', 'linux', 'freebsd',
                'netbsd', 'solaris', 'hp-10', 'hp-11', 'openserver', 'unixware',
                'os400', 'os390', 'irix', 'ptx', 'tru64', 'macosx', 'cygwin',
                'qnx', 'interix', 'mingw-msys')
                [required; no default]
           -c <C compiler name> (e.g. gcc, cc, xlc_r, qcc, icc, icpc or ecc)
                [default is make default; cc for gnu make]
           -x <C++ compiler name> (e.g. g++, CC, aCC, xlC_r, xlC_rv5compat, QCC,
                icc, icpc or ecc) [default is make default; g++ for gnu make]
           -d (specifies that you want to build debug version)
                [default: no debug]
           -m <message loader> can be 'inmem', 'icu', 'MsgFile' or
                'iconv' [default: inmem]
           -n <net accessor> can be 'fileonly', 'libwww', 'socket', 'winsock' or
                'native' [default: socket]
           -t <transcoder> can be 'icu', 'Iconv400', 'Uniconv390', 'Win32',
                 'IconvFBSD', 'IconvGNU' or 'native'
                 [default: native]
           -r <thread option> can be 'pthread' or 'dce'
                 (AIX, HP-11, and Solaris) or  'sproc' (IRIX) or 'none'
                 [default: pthread]
           -s (specifies that you want to build static libraries) [default: shared]
           -b <bitsToBuild> (accepts '64', '32') [default: 32]
           -l <extra linker options>
           -z <extra compiler options>
           -P <install-prefix>
           -C <any one extra configure options>
           -h (get help on the above commands)

| Xerces-C++ can be built as either a standalone library or as a library dependent on International Components for Unicode (ICU). For simplicity, the following discussion only explains standalone builds.

Some additional explanation may be helpful for some of the options:

- -m <message loader>, -t <transcoder>
  If you specify `icu` as the value for either of these options, you must already have set the environment variable ICUROOT to point to the ICU distribution directory.
- -n <net accessor>
  The default value `socket` handles HTTP URL's. The value `native` is only supported for Mac OS X. The value `winsock` is only supported on Mingw-msys.

One of the common ways to build Xerces-C++ is as follows:

    cd src/xercesc
    ./runConfigure -plinux -cgcc -xg++ -minmem -nsocket -tnative -rpthread

The response will be something like the following (extra line breaks have been added for readability). See especially the end, which tells you how configure was invoked.

    Generating makefiles with the following options ...
    Platform: linux
    C Compiler: gcc
    C++ Compiler: g++
    Message Loader: inmem
    Net Accessor: socket
    Transcoder: native
    Thread option: pthread
    Library type: shared
    bitsToBuild option: 32
    Extra compile options:
    Extra link options:
    Extra configure options:
    Debug is OFF

    checking for gcc... gcc
    checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
    checking whether the C compiler works... yes
    checking whether we are cross compiling... no
    checking for suffix of executables...
    checking for suffix of object files... o
    checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
    checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
    checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
    checking whether we are using the GNU C++ compiler... yes
    checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes
    checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
    checking for autoconf... autoconf
    checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
    checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /bin/grep
    checking for egrep... /bin/grep -E
    checking for ANSI C header files... yes
    checking for sys/types.h... yes
    checking for sys/stat.h... yes
    checking for stdlib.h... yes
    checking for string.h... yes
    checking for memory.h... yes
    checking for strings.h... yes
    checking for inttypes.h... yes
    checking for stdint.h... yes
    checking for unistd.h... yes
    checking for XMLByte... no
    checking build system type... i686-unknown-linux-gnu
    checking host system type... i686-unknown-linux-gnu
    configure: creating ./config.status
    config.status: creating Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Transcoders/Cygwin/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Transcoders/Win32/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Transcoders/ICU/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Transcoders/Iconv/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Transcoders/Iconv390/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Transcoders/Uniconv390/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Transcoders/Iconv400/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Transcoders/IconvFBSD/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Transcoders/IconvGNU/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Transcoders/MacOSUnicodeConverter/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/Solaris/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/AIX/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/BeOS/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/QNX/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/Linux/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/FreeBSD/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/NetBSD/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/HPUX/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/OS390/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/OS400/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/IRIX/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/PTX/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/OpenServer/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/UnixWare/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/Tru64/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/MacOS/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/Win32/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Platforms/Cygwin/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/Compilers/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/MsgLoaders/InMemory/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/MsgLoaders/ICU/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/MsgLoaders/ICU/resources/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/MsgLoaders/MsgCatalog/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/MsgLoaders/MsgFile/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/NetAccessors/Socket/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/NetAccessors/WinSock/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/NetAccessors/libWWW/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/NetAccessors/MacOSURLAccessCF/Makefile
    config.status: creating util/regx/Makefile
    config.status: creating validators/Makefile
    config.status: creating validators/common/Makefile
    config.status: creating validators/datatype/Makefile
    config.status: creating validators/DTD/Makefile
    config.status: creating validators/schema/Makefile
    config.status: creating validators/schema/identity/Makefile
    config.status: creating framework/Makefile
    config.status: creating framework/psvi/Makefile
    config.status: creating dom/Makefile
    config.status: creating dom/impl/Makefile
    config.status: creating dom/deprecated/Makefile
    config.status: creating parsers/Makefile
    config.status: creating internal/Makefile
    config.status: creating sax/Makefile
    config.status: creating sax2/Makefile
    config.status: creating ../../obj/Makefile
    config.status: executing default commands

    Having build problems?
    Read instructions at http://xerces.apache.org/xerces-c/build.html
    Still cannot resolve it?
    Find out if someone else had the same problem before.
    Go to http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xerces-c-dev

    In future, you may also directly type the following commands to create
    the Makefiles.

    export TRANSCODER="NATIVE"
    export MESSAGELOADER="INMEM"
    export NETACCESSOR="Socket"
    export THREADS="pthread"
    export LIBTYPE="shared"
    export BITSTOBUILD="32"
    export CC="gcc"
    export CXX="g++"
    export CXXFLAGS=" -w -O2 -DNDEBUG -DPROJ_XMLPARSER -DPROJ_XMLUTIL -DPROJ_PARSERS
     -DPROJ_SAX4C -DPROJ_SAX2 -DPROJ_DOM -DPROJ_DEPRECATED_DOM -DPROJ_VALIDATORS -DX
    ML_USE_NATIVE_TRANSCODER -DXML_USE_INMEM_MESSAGELOADER -DXML_USE_PTHREADS -DXML_
    USE_NETACCESSOR_SOCKET "
    export CFLAGS=" -w -O2 -DNDEBUG -DPROJ_XMLPARSER -DPROJ_XMLUTIL -DPROJ_PARSERS -
    DPROJ_SAX4C -DPROJ_SAX2 -DPROJ_DOM -DPROJ_DEPRECATED_DOM -DPROJ_VALIDATORS -DXML
    _USE_NATIVE_TRANSCODER -DXML_USE_INMEM_MESSAGELOADER -DXML_USE_PTHREADS -DXML_US
    E_NETACCESSOR_SOCKET "
    export LDFLAGS=" "
    export LIBS=" -lpthread "
    configure

    If the result of the above commands look OK to you, go to the directory
    src/xercesc and type "make" (or "gmake") to make the XERCES-C system.

So now you see what the wrapper script has actually been doing! It has invoked `configure` to create the Makefiles in the individual sub-directories, but in addition to that, it has set a few environment variables to correctly configure your compiler and compiler flags too.

If you are building a 64 bit Xerces-C++ using g++ that by default generated 32 bit code (or vice versa), then you will need to specify additional compiler and linker options via the -z and -l runConfigure options in order to switch the compiler into 64 bit mode (or 32 bit mode). These options are architecture-specific and you may need to consult the GCC manual to determine which ones to use. For the x86-64, PowerPC, and SPARC architectures these options are -m64 (64 bit mode) and -m32 (32 bit mode). Note also that if you are using the packageBinaries.pl script to build Xerces-C++ then you may need to modify this script to pass the necessary options to runConfigure.

Now that the Makefiles are all created, you are ready to do the actual build.

    make

Is that it? Yes, that's all you need to build Xerces-C++. The libraries can be found in the lib sub-directory

| If the library is built with the ICU message loader, or message catalog loader, then you need to make sure the XERCESC_NLS_HOME environment variable points to the $XERCESCROOT/msg directory where the message files reside.

| Building samples |

The building process for the samples is similar to building the Xerces-C++ libraries. The samples directory contains the runConfigure script which is very similar to the one found in src/xercesc except it has fewer options. To see available options, run:

    cd samples
    ./runConfigure -h

To continue our build procedure from the previous section, we execute runConfigure with the following options:

    ./runConfigure -plinux -cgcc -xg++ -rpthread

After that we can run GNU make to build the samples:

    make

The sample executable can be found in the bin sub-directory in xerces-c-src_2_8_0. To delete all the generated object files and executables, run:

    make clean

| Building a single-threaded library |

To build Xerces-C++ as a single-threaded library on UNIX platforms you have to pass the -rnone option to runConfigure. The following additional steps are neccessary for certain platforms:

For Aix -

- Replace `xlc_r` and `xlC_r` compilers with `xlc` and `xlC` respectively
- Replace `makeC++SharedLib_r` with `makeC++SharedLib` in Makefile.incl

| Building on Windows using Cygwin |

Do not jump into the build directly before reading this.

Xerces-C++ may be built in the Cygwin environment for use by Cygwin applications. As with the UNIX platforms, Xerces-C++ on Cygwin uses GNU tools. Therefore, with a couple of notable exceptions, Xerces-C++ on Cygwin is built using the same instructions as the UNIX platforms. The build environment variable XERCESCROOT must be set to the proper path containing the Xerces-C++ sources and runConfigure must be run with the "-pcygwin -cgcc -xg++" arguments.

Note that Cygwin is different from the UNIX platforms in the way that it finds libraries at run time. While UNIX platforms may use the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH, Cygwin uses the PATH environment variable.

There is an issue with the gcc/g++ compiler version 2.95, where C++ exceptions thrown from a dll will cause the application to crash, regardless of whether there is a "catch" statement. This bug doesn't occur in tests using gcc 3.1 or 3.2, so it is recommended that you use gcc 3.1 or higher.

| Building on Windows using Borland C++ Builder |

Xerces-C++ source distribution comes with Borland C++ Builder 6 projects to help you build Xerces-C++. The following describes the steps you need to build Xerces-C++.

| Building Xerces-C++ library |

The library and demo projects are all contained in the Xerces-all project group:

- xerces-c-src_2_8_0\Projects\Win32\BCB6\Xerces-all\Xerces-all.bpg

Each project in the group refers a directory below \Xerces-all. For example, the XercesLib project files are contained in the directory

- xerces-c-src_2_8_0\Projects\Win32\BCB6\Xerces-all\XercesLib

To build any project, open the project manager. Double click on the project name. Then select "Project|Build" from the menu. For example, double click on XercesLib.dll in the manager. Then select "Project|Build XercesLib" from the menu. Once the library has been built, include XercesLib.lib with in application's project and place XercesLib.dll somewhere in your path.

| Building on Windows using Borland C++ |

Xerces-C++ source distribution comes with Borland C++ Compiler make files to help you build Xerces-C++. The following describes the steps you need to build Xerces-C++.

1. Change directory to `xerces-c-src_2_8_0\Projects\Win32\BCC.551\Xerces-all`
2. Run `MakeBuildDirs.bat`.
3. Then issue

- `make -f Xerces-all.mak`
  to build the dll (without deprecated DOM API) and tests, or
- `make -f Xerces-all.mak -DWITHDEPRDOM=Y`
  to build the dll with deprecated DOM API (approx. 300k larger) and tests

| Building 64 bit libraries on Windows using Intel C++ |

Xerces-C++ source distribution comes with Microsoft Visual C++ NMake Files which work with Intel C++ Compiler. The following describes the steps you need to build Xerces-C++ 64 bit binary using Intel C++ Compiler.

| Building Xerces-C++ library |

Xerces-C++ source distribution provides a makefile `all.mak` which will build everything including samples, tests and the parser library.

    cd xerces-c-src_2_8_0\Projects\Win32\VC6\xerces-all\all
    nmake -f all.mak "CFG=all - Win64 Release" CPP=ecl.exe

If you want to just build the Xerces-C++ parser library alone, then

    cd xerces-c-src_2_8_0\Projects\Win32\VC6\xerces-all\XercesLib
    nmake -f XercesLib.mak "CFG=XercesLib - Win64 Release" CPP=ecl.exe

You must make sure that you are linking your application with the xerces-c_2.lib library and also make sure that the associated DLL is somewhere in your path.

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