man/ebuild.1

.TH "EBUILD" "1" "Nov 2002" "Portage 2.0.51" "Portage"
.SH "NAME"
ebuild \- manual page for the ebuild program, a low level interface to
the Portage system. 
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.B ebuild
.I file command [command]\fR...
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
The ebuild program is a direct interface to the Portage system. It
allows for direct action upon an ebuild with specific subcommands or
groups of commands to perform in a specific ebuild's context and
functions. Accepting an ebuild script and one or more commands
as arguments, the ebuild program parses the ebuild script and
execute the specified commands.  Commands exist to fetch sources,
unpack sources, compile sources, install object files into a temporary
directory "image", merge the image to the local filesystem, create a
bzipped tarball package out of the image, and more.
.SH "FILE"
This must be a valid ebuild script.  For further information read
\fBebuild\fR(5).
.SH "COMMANDS"
.TP
.BR help
Show a condensed form of the man page along with a lot of package
specific information.
.TP
.BR setup
Run all package specific setup actions and exotic system checks.
.TP
.BR clean
Cleans the temporary build directory that Portage has created for
this particular ebuild file.  The temporary build directory normally
contains the extracted source files as well as a possible
"install image" (all the files that will be merged to the local
filesystem or stored in a package).  The location of the build
directory is set by the BUILD_PREFIX variable.  For information
on what this variable is, run \fIemerge [\-v] info\fR, or to override
this variable, see \fBmake.conf\fR(5).

Note: Portage cleans up almost everything after a package has been
successfully merged unless FEATURES contains 'noclean'. Adding noclean
to FEATURES will cause a lot of files to remain and will consume large
amounts of space, very quickly. It is not recommended to leave this on
unless you have use for the sources post\-merge. Optionally one may,
manual clean \fIrm \-rf /var/tmp/portage\fR will take care of all
of these files.
.TP
.BR fetch
Checks to see if all the sources specified in SRC_URI are available in
DISTDIR (see \fBmake.conf\fR(5) for more information) and have a valid
md5 checksum.  If the sources aren't available, an attempt is made to
download them from the locations specified in SRC_URI.  If multiple
download locations are listed for a particular file, Portage pings
each location to see which location is closer. (May not be true
presently.)  The Gentoo Linux mirrors defined by GENTOO_MIRRORS is
always considered first. If for some reason the current or
just\-downloaded sources' md5 digests don't match those recorded
in files/digest\-[package]\-[version\-rev], a warning is printed
and ebuild exits with an error code of 1.
.TP
.BR digest
Creates a digest file for the package in
/usr/portage/[category]/[package]/files/. This digest file lists the
md5sum's of all the files found in the SRC_URI.  If the fetched source
of the package is corrupt/bogus in some way, the md5sum will catch this.
.TP
.BR unpack
Extracts the sources to a subdirectory in the \fIbuild directory\fR
(BUILD_PREFIX) by running the \fIsrc_unpack()\fR function in the ebuild
file.  If no src_unpack() function has been specified, a default
src_unpack() function is used that extracts all the files specified in
SRC_URI.  The sources are normally extracted to
${BUILD_PREFIX}/[package]\-[version\-rev]/work. This particular directory
can be referenced by using the ${WORKDIR} variable.

If you're creating an ebuild, you'll want to make sure that the S
(source directory) variable defined at at the top of your ebuild script
points to the directory that contains your extracted sources. This
directory is defined by default to be ${WORKDIR}/${P}, so it is not
often required.  The src_unpack() function is also responsible for
making the appropriate patches to the sources so that they're ready
for compilation.
.TP
.BR compile
Compiles the extracted sources by running the the \fIsrc_compile()\fR
function specified in the ebuild file.  When src_compile() starts, the
current working directory will be set to ${S}.  When src_compile()
completes, the sources should be fully compiled.
.TP
.BR test
Run package specific test cases to verify that everything was built 
properly.
.TP
.BR preinst
Run package specific actions that need to be done before the package
is installed into the live filesystem.
.TP
.BR install
Installs the package to the temporary \fIinstall directory\fR by running
the \fIsrc_install()\fR function.  When completed, the
\fIinstall directory\fR (${BUILD_PREFIX}/[package]\-[version\-rev]/image)
will contain all the files that should either be merged to the local
file system or included in a binary package.
.TP
.BR postinst
Run package specific actions that need to be done after the package
is installed into the live filesystem.  Usually helpful messages are
shown here.
.TP
.BR qmerge
This function installs all the files in the \fIinstall directory\fR
to the live filesystem. The process works as follows: first, the
\fIpkg_preinst()\fR function (if specified) is run.  Then, the files
are merged into the live filesystem, and the installed files' md5
digests are recorded in
\fI/var/db/pkg/${CATEOGRY}/${PN}\-[version\-rev]/CONTENTS\fR.  After
all the files have been merged, the \fIpkg_postinst()\fR function
(if specified) is executed.
.TP
.BR merge
Normally, to merge an ebuild, you need to \fIfetch\fR, \fIunpack\fR,
\fIcompile\fR, \fIinstall\fR and \fIqmerge\fR.  If you're simply
interested in merging the ebuild, you can use this command, which
will perform all these steps for you, stopping along the way if a
particular step doesn't complete successfully.
.TP
.BR unmerge
This function first executes the \fIpkg_prerm\fR function (if specified).
Then it removes all files from the live filesystem that have a valid md5
checksum and mtime in the package contents file.  Any empty directories
are recursively removed.  Finally, it runs \fIpkg_postrm\fR function (if
specified).  It is safe to merge a new version of a package first and
then unmerge the old one.  In fact, this is the recommended package
upgrade method.
.TP
.BR prerm
Run package specific actions that need to be executed before the package is
removed from the filesystem.  See also \fIunmerge\fR.
.TP
.BR postrm
Run package specific actions that need to be executed after the package is
removed from the filesystem.  See also \fIunmerge\fR.
.TP
.BR config
Run package specific actions needed to be executed after the emerge
process has completed.  This usually entails configuration file
setup or other similar setups that the user may wish to run.
.TP
.BR package
This command is a lot like the \fImerge\fR command, except that after
fetching, unpacking, compiling and installing, a .tbz2 binary package
tarball is created and stored in  ${PKGDIR}/All (${PKGDIR} defaults to
/usr/portage/packages).  A symbolic link is created in
${PKGDIR}/${CATEGORY} that points to the package in ${PKGDIR}/All.
.TP
.BR rpm
Builds a RedHat RPM package from the files in the temporary
\fIinstall directory\fR. At the moment, the ebuild's dependency
information is not incorporated into the RPM.
.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
Please report bugs via http://bugs.gentoo.org/
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR emerge (1),
.BR ebuild (5),
.BR make.conf (5)
.TP
The \fI/usr/sbin/ebuild.sh\fR script. 
.TP
The helper apps in \fI/usr/lib/portage/bin\fR.
.SH "FILES"
.TP
\fB/etc/make.conf\fR 
Contains variables for the build\-process and overwrites those
in make.globals.
.SH "AUTHORS"
Achim Gottinger <achim@gentoo.org>
.br 
Daniel Robbins <drobbins@gentoo.org>
.br 
Nicholas Jones <carpaski@gentoo.org>
.br 
Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
.SH "CVS HEADER"
$Id: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-src/portage/man/ebuild.1,v 1.16 2004/09/17 00:17:10 vapier Exp $"