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10 This is Expat, a C library for parsing XML, started by
11 [James Clark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clark_%28programmer%29) in 1997.
12 Expat is a stream-oriented XML parser. This means that you register
13 handlers with the parser before starting the parse. These handlers
14 are called when the parser discovers the associated structures in the
15 document being parsed. A start tag is an example of the kind of
16 structures for which you may register handlers.
18 Expat supports the following compilers:
22 - Microsoft Visual Studio >=15.0/2017 (rolling `${today} minus 5 years`)
24 Windows users can use the
25 [`expat-win32bin-*.*.*.{exe,zip}` download](https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/releases),
26 which includes both pre-compiled libraries and executables, and source code for
29 Expat is [free software](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html).
30 You may copy, distribute, and modify it under the terms of the License
32 [`COPYING`](https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/blob/master/expat/COPYING)
33 distributed with this package.
34 This license is the same as the MIT/X Consortium license.
37 ## Using libexpat in your CMake-Based Project
39 There are two ways of using libexpat with CMake:
43 This approach leverages CMake's own [module `FindEXPAT`](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/module/FindEXPAT.html).
45 Notice the *uppercase* `EXPAT` in the following example:
48 cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0) # or 3.10, see below
50 project(hello VERSION 1.0.0)
52 find_package(EXPAT 2.2.8 MODULE REQUIRED)
58 # a) for CMake >=3.10 (see CMake's FindEXPAT docs)
59 target_link_libraries(hello PUBLIC EXPAT::EXPAT)
62 target_include_directories(hello PRIVATE ${EXPAT_INCLUDE_DIRS})
63 target_link_libraries(hello PUBLIC ${EXPAT_LIBRARIES})
68 This approach requires files from…
70 - libexpat >=2.2.8 where packaging uses the CMake build system
72 - libexpat >=2.3.0 where packaging uses the GNU Autotools build system
75 - libexpat >=2.4.0 where packaging uses the GNU Autotools build system
78 Notice the *lowercase* `expat` in the following example:
81 cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0)
83 project(hello VERSION 1.0.0)
85 find_package(expat 2.2.8 CONFIG REQUIRED char dtd ns)
91 target_link_libraries(hello PUBLIC expat::expat)
95 ## Building from a Git Clone
97 If you are building Expat from a check-out from the
98 [Git repository](https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/),
99 you need to run a script that generates the configure script using the
100 GNU autoconf and libtool tools. To do this, you need to have
101 autoconf 2.58 or newer. Run the script like this:
107 Once this has been done, follow the same instructions as for building
108 from a source distribution.
111 ## Building from a Source Distribution
113 ### a) Building with the configure script (i.e. GNU Autotools)
115 To build Expat from a source distribution, you first run the
116 configuration shell script in the top level distribution directory:
122 There are many options which you may provide to configure (which you
123 can discover by running configure with the `--help` option). But the
124 one of most interest is the one that sets the installation directory.
125 By default, the configure script will set things up to install
126 libexpat into `/usr/local/lib`, `expat.h` into `/usr/local/include`, and
127 `xmlwf` into `/usr/local/bin`. If, for example, you'd prefer to install
128 into `/home/me/mystuff/lib`, `/home/me/mystuff/include`, and
129 `/home/me/mystuff/bin`, you can tell `configure` about that with:
132 ./configure --prefix=/home/me/mystuff
135 Another interesting option is to enable 64-bit integer support for
136 line and column numbers and the over-all byte index:
139 ./configure CPPFLAGS=-DXML_LARGE_SIZE
142 However, such a modification would be a breaking change to the ABI
143 and is therefore not recommended for general use — e.g. as part of
144 a Linux distribution — but rather for builds with special requirements.
146 After running the configure script, the `make` command will build
147 things and `make install` will install things into their proper
148 location. Have a look at the `Makefile` to learn about additional
149 `make` options. Note that you need to have write permission into
150 the directories into which things will be installed.
152 If you are interested in building Expat to provide document
153 information in UTF-16 encoding rather than the default UTF-8, follow
154 these instructions (after having run `make distclean`).
155 Please note that we configure with `--without-xmlwf` as xmlwf does not
156 support this mode of compilation (yet):
158 1. Mass-patch `Makefile.am` files to use `libexpatw.la` for a library name:
160 `find -name Makefile.am -exec sed
161 -e 's,libexpat\.la,libexpatw.la,'
162 -e 's,libexpat_la,libexpatw_la,'
165 1. Run `automake` to re-write `Makefile.in` files:<br/>
168 1. For UTF-16 output as unsigned short (and version/error strings as char),
170 `./configure CPPFLAGS=-DXML_UNICODE --without-xmlwf`<br/>
171 For UTF-16 output as `wchar_t` (incl. version/error strings), run:<br/>
172 `./configure CFLAGS="-g -O2 -fshort-wchar" CPPFLAGS=-DXML_UNICODE_WCHAR_T
174 <br/>Note: The latter requires libc compiled with `-fshort-wchar`, as well.
176 1. Run `make` (which excludes xmlwf).
178 1. Run `make install` (again, excludes xmlwf).
180 Using `DESTDIR` is supported. It works as follows:
183 make install DESTDIR=/path/to/image
186 overrides the in-makefile set `DESTDIR`, because variable-setting priority is
192 Note: This only applies to the Expat library itself, building UTF-16 versions
193 of xmlwf and the tests is currently not supported.
195 When using Expat with a project using autoconf for configuration, you
196 can use the probing macro in `conftools/expat.m4` to determine how to
197 include Expat. See the comments at the top of that file for more
200 A reference manual is available in the file `doc/reference.html` in this
204 ### b) Building with CMake
206 The CMake build system is still *experimental* and may replace the primary
207 build system based on GNU Autotools at some point when it is ready.
210 #### Available Options
212 For an idea of the available (non-advanced) options for building with CMake:
215 # rm -f CMakeCache.txt ; cmake -D_EXPAT_HELP=ON -LH . | grep -B1 ':.*=' | sed 's,^--$,,'
216 // Choose the type of build, options are: None Debug Release RelWithDebInfo MinSizeRel ...
217 CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=
219 // Install path prefix, prepended onto install directories.
220 CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=/usr/local
222 // Path to a program.
223 DOCBOOK_TO_MAN:FILEPATH=/usr/bin/docbook2x-man
225 // build man page for xmlwf
226 EXPAT_BUILD_DOCS:BOOL=ON
228 // build the examples for expat library
229 EXPAT_BUILD_EXAMPLES:BOOL=ON
231 // build fuzzers for the expat library
232 EXPAT_BUILD_FUZZERS:BOOL=OFF
234 // build pkg-config file
235 EXPAT_BUILD_PKGCONFIG:BOOL=ON
237 // build the tests for expat library
238 EXPAT_BUILD_TESTS:BOOL=ON
240 // build the xmlwf tool for expat library
241 EXPAT_BUILD_TOOLS:BOOL=ON
243 // Character type to use (char|ushort|wchar_t) [default=char]
244 EXPAT_CHAR_TYPE:STRING=char
246 // install expat files in cmake install target
247 EXPAT_ENABLE_INSTALL:BOOL=ON
249 // Use /MT flag (static CRT) when compiling in MSVC
250 EXPAT_MSVC_STATIC_CRT:BOOL=OFF
252 // build fuzzers via ossfuzz for the expat library
253 EXPAT_OSSFUZZ_BUILD:BOOL=OFF
255 // build a shared expat library
256 EXPAT_SHARED_LIBS:BOOL=ON
258 // Treat all compiler warnings as errors
259 EXPAT_WARNINGS_AS_ERRORS:BOOL=OFF
261 // Make use of getrandom function (ON|OFF|AUTO) [default=AUTO]
262 EXPAT_WITH_GETRANDOM:STRING=AUTO
264 // utilize libbsd (for arc4random_buf)
265 EXPAT_WITH_LIBBSD:BOOL=OFF
267 // Make use of syscall SYS_getrandom (ON|OFF|AUTO) [default=AUTO]
268 EXPAT_WITH_SYS_GETRANDOM:STRING=AUTO