1 /* FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec
2 * Copyright (C) 2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007 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 LGPL or GPL (see COPYING.LGPL and
9 * COPYING.GPL). The documentation is distributed under the Gnu FDL (see
10 * COPYING.FDL). Each file in the FLAC distribution contains at the top the
11 * terms under which it may be distributed.
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 - 1.2.1 - Contents
42 ===============================================================================
46 - Note to embedded developers
47 - Building in a GNU environment
48 - Building with Makefile.lite
50 - Building on Mac OS X
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 include/ public include files for libFLAC and libFLAC++
67 man/ the man page for `flac'
68 src/ the source code and private headers
69 test/ the test scripts
72 ===============================================================================
74 ===============================================================================
76 To build FLAC with support for Ogg FLAC you must have built and installed
77 libogg according to the specific instructions below. You must have
78 libogg 1.1.2 or greater, or there will be seeking problems with Ogg FLAC.
80 If you are building on x86 and want the assembly optimizations, you will
81 need to have NASM >= 0.98.30 installed according to the specific instructions
85 ===============================================================================
86 Note to embedded developers
87 ===============================================================================
89 libFLAC has grown larger over time as more functionality has been
90 included, but much of it may be unnecessary for a particular embedded
91 implementation. Unused parts may be pruned by some simple editing of
92 configure.in and src/libFLAC/Makefile.am; the following dependency
93 graph shows which modules may be pruned without breaking things
107 In other words, for pure decoding applications, both the stream encoder
108 and metadata editing interfaces can be safely removed.
110 There is a section dedicated to embedded use in the libFLAC API
111 HTML documentation (see doc/html/api/index.html).
113 Also, there are several places in the libFLAC code with comments marked
114 with "OPT:" where a #define can be changed to enable code that might be
115 faster on a specific platform. Experimenting with these can yield faster
119 ===============================================================================
120 Building in a GNU environment
121 ===============================================================================
123 FLAC uses autoconf and libtool for configuring and building.
124 Better documentation for these will be forthcoming, but in
125 general, this should work:
127 ./configure && make && make check && make install
129 The 'make check' step is optional; omit it to skip all the tests,
130 which can take several hours and use around 70-80 megs of disk space.
131 Even though it will stop with an explicit message on any failure, it
132 does print out a lot of stuff so you might want to capture the output
133 to a file if you're having a problem. Also, don't run 'make check'
134 as root because it confuses some of the tests.
136 NOTE: Despite our best efforts it's entirely possible to have
137 problems when using older versions of autoconf, automake, or
138 libtool. If you have the latest versions and still can't get it
139 to work, see the next section on Makefile.lite.
141 There are a few FLAC-specific arguments you can give to
144 --enable-debug : Builds everything with debug symbols and some
145 extra (and more verbose) error checking.
147 --disable-asm-optimizations : Disables the compilation of the
148 assembly routines. Many routines have assembly versions for
149 speed and `configure' is pretty good about knowing what is
150 supported, but you can use this option to build only from the
151 C sources. May be necessary for building on OS X (Intel)
153 --enable-sse : If you are building for an x86 CPU that supports
154 SSE instructions, you can enable some of the faster routines
155 if your operating system also supports SSE instructions. flac
156 can tell if the CPU supports the instructions but currently has
157 no way to test if the OS does, so if it does, you must pass
158 this argument to configure to use the SSE routines. If flac
159 crashes when built with this option you will have to go back and
160 configure without --enable-sse. Note that
161 --disable-asm-optimizations implies --disable-sse.
163 --enable-local-xmms-plugin : Installs the FLAC XMMS plugin in
164 $HOME/.xmms/Plugins, instead of the global XMMS plugin area
165 (usually /usr/lib/xmms/Input).
169 --with-libiconv-prefix=
170 Use these if you have these packages but configure can't find them.
172 If you want to build completely from scratch (i.e. starting with just
173 configure.in and Makefile.am) you should be able to just run 'autogen.sh'
174 but make sure and read the comments in that file first.
177 ===============================================================================
178 Building with Makefile.lite
179 ===============================================================================
181 There is a more lightweight build system for do-it-yourself-ers.
182 It is also useful if configure isn't working, which may be the
183 case since lately we've had some problems with different versions
184 of automake and libtool. The Makefile.lite system should work
185 on GNU systems with few or no adjustments.
187 From the top level just 'make -f Makefile.lite'. You can
188 specify zero or one optional target from 'release', 'debug',
189 'test', or 'clean'. The default is 'release'. There is no
190 'install' target but everything you need will end up in the
193 If you are not on an x86 system or you don't have nasm, you
194 may have to change the DEFINES in src/libFLAC/Makefile.lite. If
195 you don't have nasm, remove -DFLAC__HAS_NASM. If your target is
196 not an x86, change -DFLAC__CPU_IA32 to -DFLAC__CPU_UNKNOWN.
199 ===============================================================================
201 ===============================================================================
203 There are .dsp projects and a master FLAC.dsw workspace to build all
204 the libraries and executables with MSVC6. There are also .vcproj
205 projects and a master FLAC.sln solution to build all the libraries and
206 executables with VC++ 2005.
208 Prerequisite: you must have the Ogg libraries installed as described
211 Prerequisite: you must have nasm installed, and nasmw.exe must be in
212 your PATH, or the path to nasmw.exe must be added to the list of
213 directories for executable files in the MSVC global options.
216 To build everything, run Developer Studio, do File|Open Workspace,
217 and open FLAC.dsw. Select "Build | Set active configuration..."
218 from the menu, then in the dialog, select "All - Win32 Release" (or
219 Debug if you prefer). Click "Ok" then hit F7 to build.
222 To build everything, run Visual Studio, do File|Open and open FLAC.sln.
223 From the dropdown in the toolbar, select "Release" instead of "Debug",
224 then hit F7 to build.
226 Either way, this will build all libraries both statically (e.g.
227 obj\release\lib\libFLAC_static.lib) and as DLLs (e.g.
228 obj\release\lib\libFLAC.dll), and it will build all binaries, statically
229 linked (e.g. obj\release\bin\flac.exe).
231 Everything will end up in the "obj" directory. DLLs and .exe files
232 are all that are needed and can be copied to an installation area and
233 added to the PATH. The plugins have to be copied to their appropriate
234 place in the player area. For Winamp2 this is <winamp2-dir>\Plugins.
236 By default the code is configured with Ogg support. Before building FLAC
237 you will need to get the Ogg source distribution
238 (see http://xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/download/), build ogg_static.lib (load and
239 build win32\ogg_static.dsp), copy ogg_static.lib into FLAC's
240 'obj\release\lib' directory, and copy the entire include\ogg tree into
241 FLAC's 'include' directory (so that there is an 'ogg' directory in FLAC's
242 'include' directory with the files ogg.h, os_types.h and config_types.h).
244 If you want to build without Ogg support, instead edit all .dsp or
245 .vcproj files and remove any occurrences of "/D FLAC__HAS_OGG".
248 ===============================================================================
250 ===============================================================================
252 If you have Fink or a recent version of OS X with the proper autotooles,
253 the GNU flow above should work. The Project Builder project has been
254 deprecated but we are working on replacing it with an Xcode equivalent.