View source for Building under Posix

== Prerequisites ==

To build D on POSIX, you will need to have <tt>make</tt>, <tt>g++</tt>, <tt>libcurl4-openssl-dev</tt>, and <tt>git</tt> installed on your system, as well as a working GitHub account. To install the appropriate dependencies on e.g. Ubuntu:

 sudo apt-get install curl git make g++ libcurl4-openssl-dev

On OS X with Homebrew:

 $ xcode-select --install
 $ brew install git openssl

To build the 32-bit phobos on a 64-bit machine, some 32-bit packages are also needed:

 sudo apt-get install gcc-multilib libc6-dev-i386 linux-libc-dev:i386 libcurl4-gnutls-dev:i386

Other versions and variations of <tt>libcurl</tt> may work as well.

== Building D ==

=== Fetch repositories from GitHub ===

Let's start by getting the current development (master) branch of the D repositories from GitHub. Assume the root directory for everything D-related is <tt>~/dlang</tt> (replace appropriately). This is easily done by running at a command prompt:

<syntaxhighlight lang=bash>
cd ~/dlang
git clone https://github.com/dlang/dmd
git clone https://github.com/dlang/druntime
git clone https://github.com/dlang/phobos
git clone https://github.com/dlang/tools
</syntaxhighlight>

After this step completes successfully, the <tt>~/dlang</tt> should be up and filled with good stuff.

=== Bootstrap <tt>dmd</tt> ===

This step is interesting because in order to build <tt>dmd</tt>, <tt>dmd</tt> is necessary. Fortunately, the steps of downloading and using a preexisting <tt>dmd</tt> compiler are automated. All you need to do is run this command:

<syntaxhighlight lang=bash>
cd ~/dlang/dmd
make -f posix.mak -j8 AUTO_BOOTSTRAP=1
</syntaxhighlight>

That's going to take a while. The build produces the compiler binary situated in an OS-dependent directory such as <tt>~/dlang/dmd/generated/linux/release/64/dmd</tt>.

To make <tt>dmd</tt> builds faster in the future, you need to obviate the need for bootstrapping. Install <tt>dmd</tt> from the [http://dlang.org/download.html download page] or simply put the freshly built <tt>dmd</tt> binary in a place accessible through <tt>$PATH</tt> (a popular choice is <tt>~/bin</tt>).

=== Build <tt>phobos</tt> ===

Most D programs use D's standard library <tt>phobos</tt>. To build it, run:

<syntaxhighlight lang=bash>
cd ~/dlang/phobos
make -f posix.mak -j8
</syntaxhighlight>

The build produces (with similar anticlimacticity) static and shared libraries such as <tt>~/dlang/phobos/generated/linux/release/64/libphobos2.a</tt> and <tt>~/code/phobos/generated/linux/release/64/libphobos2.so</tt>.

As part of the build <tt>druntime</tt> will be built automatically, e.g. the generated <tt>druntime</tt> interfaces can be found at <tt>~/dlang/druntime/import</tt>.
The generated <tt>druntime</tt> libraries like <tt>~/dlang/druntime/generated/linux/release/64/libdruntime.a</tt> get bundled with built <tt>phobos</tt> libraries.

=== Building <tt>dmd</tt> for Windows on Linux ===

Most Linux developers do no have a Windows machine to test their changes on both platforms, fortunately there is a tool called Wine (Windows Emulator) which enables running Windows specific binaries on Linux. In order to be able to build and run the Windows dmd version on Linux, you must go through the following steps: (it is assumed that all the above steps have been completed)

1. Install Wine following the instructions found [https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu here].

2. Download [http://dlang.org/download.html the Windows dmd installer] and [http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmc.zip the DigitalMars C++ compiler].

3. Install dmd for Windows using Wine

    wine /path/to/dmd/installer.exe

This command will start the dmd Windows installation as if you were on Windows. Wine creates a typical Windows directory structure located in ~/.wine/drive_c where drive_c is the directory which corresponds to C:\ on Windows. It is recommended that you install D in C:\

4. After installing dmd, you will need to unzip the C++ compiler (dmc) directly in drive_c so that it will be visible to Wine

   unzip /path/to/dmc.zip -d ~/.wine/drive_c

5. Now that the Windows compiler is installed, all we need to do is to properly set the environment variables needed by win32.mak. Wine forwards all the existing environment variables, except a few special ones : <b>PATH</b>, <b>TEMP</b>, <b>SYSTEM</b> which need to be set in a different way. Assuming that D is installed in C:\, you need to set the following environment variables:

<syntaxhighlight lang=bash>
export DM_HOME=C:\D
export HOST_DC=dmd
</syntaxhighlight>

We still need to append to <b>PATH</b> the path to dmc and dmd. We can't modify it as in the case of the variables listed above, because that will alter the Unix environment settings. Instead it should be set in a registry. To set it, type <b>wine regedit</b> and then go to <b>HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Environment</b>. Now you can create or modify the values of the needed variables. In our case:

    "Path" = "C:\D\dm\bin\;C:\D\dmd2\windows\bin"

6. At this point we should be good to go: 

<syntaxhighlight lang=bash>
cd ~/dlang/dmd/src
make -fwin32.mak
</syntaxhighlight>

== Where to go from here ==

If you want to contribute to a D project, please continue with the [[Starting_as_a_Contributor| starting as a contributor]] guide.
If you want to contribute to Phobos, you may also read the [[Contributing to Phobos|contributing to Phobos guide]].