2

I'm working on a simple command line tool in c++. Half as a fun learning-process thing, and half to distribute to friends/colleagues etc.

I assume the easiest way to make it distributable is just packaging the source code with an installation script---can anyone point me to a good tutorial for setting that up? In other words, what must a script include to compile the program, put the files in good places*, and make it executable from any directory from the command line?

    • E.g. I know the compiled binary should go in /usr/local/bin/ , but if I'm writing-to and accessing a text file (for instance), where should that go? What about a file that stores settings/configuration-parameters?

I'm on mac osx, so that would be the starting point, but portability to windows, linux, etc would be great.

Improve this question
1
  • Best for Windows is to use an installer like Innosetup at jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php Commented May 3, 2011 at 19:51

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

You can use CMake to make a cross platform build system, and you can use it's CPack (Wiki here) feature in order to generate binary only packages. First you create a build script that runs and installs on each platform (which CMake makes as easy as can be expected). You then run CPack to generate a package which just includes your binaries.

There is a good tutorial that covers the basic cmake process (including install commands) here.

CMake is generally considered simpler then autoconf (and has better windows support), but each has it's own strengths.

Improve this answer
Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

1

Do not assume that the user installing the program has root access. Prompt, or provide a command-line option, like --install-prefix=/home/user/apps, to specify where to install.

I HATE programs that install shit in /usr/local. If you do that, you'd best wrap it up in an .rpm or .deb or whatever the platform package is so that your app can be cleanly uninstalled.

I would suggest checking out autoconf

Improve this answer

3 Comments

My impression (note: only an impression) is that configure, make, etc end up just sticking the compiled binary into usr/local and whatever other files to whatever places they belong. Because my program is incredibly simple (a couple of files, a few hundred lines of code) I thought all of this would be unnecessary. Does that stuff even make it easily uninstallable? What's your motivation for not wanting things installed to /usr/local?
autoconf lets you specify --install-prefix which gives you a root for your application and it's configuration files. In general when I deploy applications that depend on custom-built utilities, I always keep them together. That way I can always see at a glance the dependencies I've added. If I ever migrate to new hosts, I'm not screwed by missing something. Nowadays I'd deployment platforms like Puppet or cfEngine to hardcode those dependencies, so maybe it's just 17 years of indoctrination and habit?
autoconf on it's own does not do "packaging" for uninstall. That's something that falls to rpmbuild or whatever the debian equivalent is.

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.