1 /* FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec
2 * Copyright (C) 2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006 Josh Coalson
4 * This file is part the FLAC project. FLAC is comprised of several
5 * components distributed under difference licenses. The codec libraries
6 * are distributed under Xiph.Org's BSD-like license (see the file
7 * COPYING.Xiph in this distribution). All other programs, libraries, and
8 * plugins are distributed under the GPL (see COPYING.GPL). The documentation
9 * is distributed under the Gnu FDL (see COPYING.FDL). Each file in the
10 * FLAC distribution contains at the top the terms under which it may be
13 * Since this particular file is relevant to all components of FLAC,
14 * it may be distributed under the Xiph.Org license, which is the least
15 * restrictive of those mentioned above. See the file COPYING.Xiph in this
20 FLAC (http://flac.sourceforge.net/) is an Open Source lossless audio
21 codec developed by Josh Coalson.
24 * `libFLAC', a library which implements reference encoders and
25 decoders for native FLAC and Ogg FLAC, and a metadata interface
26 * `libFLAC++', a C++ object wrapper library around libFLAC
27 * `flac', a command-line program for encoding and decoding files
28 * `metaflac', a command-line program for viewing and editing FLAC
30 * player plugins for XMMS and Winamp
31 * user and API documentation
33 The libraries (libFLAC, libFLAC++) are
34 licensed under Xiph.org's BSD-like license (see COPYING.Xiph). All other
35 programs and plugins are licensed under the GNU General Public License
36 (see COPYING.GPL). The documentation is licensed under the GNU Free
37 Documentation License (see COPYING.FDL).
40 ===============================================================================
41 FLAC - 1.1.3-beta2 - Contents
42 ===============================================================================
46 - Building in a GNU environment
47 - Building with Makefile.lite
49 - Building on Mac OS X
50 - Note to embedded developers
53 ===============================================================================
55 ===============================================================================
57 This is the source release for the FLAC project. See
61 for full documentation.
63 A brief description of the directory tree:
65 doc/ the HTML documentation
66 flac.pbproj/ the Mac OS X Project Builder project
67 include/ public include files for libFLAC and libFLAC++
68 man/ the man page for `flac'
69 src/ the source code and private headers
70 test/ the test scripts
73 ===============================================================================
75 ===============================================================================
77 To build FLAC with support for Ogg FLAC you must have built and installed
78 libogg according to the specific instructions below. You must have
79 libogg 1.1.2 or greater, or there will be seeking problems with Ogg FLAC.
81 If you are building on x86 and want the assembly optimizations, you will
82 need to have NASM >= 0.98.30 installed according to the specific instructions
86 ===============================================================================
87 Building in a GNU environment
88 ===============================================================================
90 FLAC uses autoconf and libtool for configuring and building.
91 Better documentation for these will be forthcoming, but in
92 general, this should work:
94 ./configure && make && make check && make install
96 The 'make check' step is optional; omit it to skip all the tests,
97 which can take several hours and use around 70-80 megs of disk space.
98 Even though it will stop with an explicit message on any failure, it
99 does print out a lot of stuff so you might want to capture the output
100 to a file if you're having a problem. Also, don't run 'make check'
101 as root because it confuses some of the tests.
103 NOTE: Despite our best efforts it's entirely possible to have
104 problems when using older versions of autoconf, automake, or
105 libtool. If you have the latest versions and still can't get it
106 to work, see the next section on Makefile.lite.
108 There are a few FLAC-specific arguments you can give to
111 --enable-debug : Builds everything with debug symbols and some
112 extra (and more verbose) error checking.
114 --disable-asm-optimizations : Disables the compilation of the
115 assembly routines. Many routines have assembly versions for
116 speed and `configure' is pretty good about knowing what is
117 supported, but you can use this option to build only from the
120 --enable-sse : If you are building for an x86 CPU that supports
121 SSE instructions, you can enable some of the faster routines
122 if your operating system also supports SSE instructions. flac
123 can tell if the CPU supports the instructions but currently has
124 no way to test if the OS does, so if it does, you must pass
125 this argument to configure to use the SSE routines. If flac
126 crashes when built with this option you will have to go back and
127 configure without --enable-sse. Note that
128 --disable-asm-optimizations implies --disable-sse.
130 --enable-local-xmms-plugin : Installs the FLAC XMMS plugin in
131 $HOME/.xmms/Plugins, instead of the global XMMS plugin area
132 (usually /usr/lib/xmms/Input).
136 --with-libiconv-prefix=
137 Use these if you have these packages but configure can't find them.
139 If you want to build completely from scratch (i.e. starting with just
140 configure.in and Makefile.am) you should be able to just run 'autogen.sh'
141 but make sure and read the comments in that file first.
144 ===============================================================================
145 Building with Makefile.lite
146 ===============================================================================
148 There is a more lightweight build system for do-it-yourself-ers.
149 It is also useful if configure isn't working, which may be the
150 case since lately we've had some problems with different versions
151 of automake and libtool. The Makefile.lite system should work
152 on GNU systems with few or no adjustments.
154 From the top level just 'make -f Makefile.lite'. You can
155 specify zero or one optional target from 'release', 'debug',
156 'test', or 'clean'. The default is 'release'. There is no
157 'install' target but everything you need will end up in the
160 If you are not on an x86 system or you don't have nasm, you
161 may have to change the DEFINES in src/libFLAC/Makefile.lite. If
162 you don't have nasm, remove -DFLAC__HAS_NASM. If your target is
163 not an x86, change -DFLAC__CPU_IA32 to -DFLAC__CPU_UNKNOWN.
166 ===============================================================================
168 ===============================================================================
170 There are now .dsp projects and a master FLAC.dsw workspace to build
171 all the libraries and executables.
173 Prerequisite: you must have the Ogg libraries installed as described
176 Prerequisite: you must have nasm installed, and nasmw.exe must be in
177 your PATH, or the path to nasmw.exe must be added to the list of
178 directories for executable files in the MSVC global options.
180 To build everything, run Developer Studio, do File|Open Workspace,
181 and open FLAC.dsw. Select "Build | Set active configuration..."
182 from the menu, then in the dialog, select "All - Win32 Release" (or
183 Debug if you prefer). Click "Ok" then hit F7 to build. This will build
184 all libraries both statically (e.g. obj\release\lib\libFLAC_static.lib)
185 and as DLLs (e.g. obj\release\bin\libFLAC.dll), and it will build all
186 binaries, statically linked (e.g. obj\release\bin\flac.exe).
188 Everything will end up in the "obj" directory. DLLs and .exe files
189 are all that are needed and can be copied to an installation area and
190 added to the PATH. The plugins have to be copied to their appropriate
191 place in the player area. For Winamp2 this is <winamp2-dir>\Plugins.
193 By default the code is configured with Ogg support. Before building FLAC
194 you will need to get the Ogg source distribution
195 (see http://xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/download/), build ogg_static.lib (load and
196 build win32\ogg_static.dsp), copy ogg_static.lib into FLAC's
197 'obj\release\lib' directory, and copy the entire include\ogg tree into
198 FLAC's 'include' directory (so that there is an 'ogg' directory in FLAC's
199 'include' directory with the files ogg.h, os_types.h and config_types.h).
202 ===============================================================================
204 ===============================================================================
206 If you have Fink, the GNU flow above should work. Otherwise,
207 there is a Project Builder project in the top-level source
208 directory to build libFLAC and the command-line utilities on
209 Mac OS X. In a terminal, cd to the top-level directory (the
210 one that contains this README file) and type:
214 This will create everything and leave it in the build/ directory.
215 Don't worry about the rest of the stuff that is in build/ or
216 the stuff that was already there before building.
218 The Project Builder project requires that you have libiconv and
219 libogg in /sw, ala fink. If you don't, you'll need to install
220 them somewhere and change the path to them in the Library Paths
221 section of several targets.
223 It also assumes the CPU supports Altivec instructions. If it does
224 not, you will also have to add -DFLAC__NO_ASM to the CFLAGS in the
227 There currently is no install procedure; you will have to
228 manually copy the tools to wherever you need them.
231 ===============================================================================
232 Note to embedded developers
233 ===============================================================================
235 libFLAC has grown larger over time as more functionality has been
236 included, but much of it may be unnecessary for a particular embedded
237 implementation. Unused parts may be pruned by some simple editing of
238 configure.in and src/libFLAC/Makefile.am; the following dependency
239 graph shows which modules may be pruned without breaking things
252 In other words, for pure decoding applications, both the stream encoder
253 and metadata editing interfaces can be safely removed.
255 There is a section dedicated to embedded use in the libFLAC API
256 HTML documentation (see doc/html/api/index.html).