Getting Started With The POCO C++ Libraries
AAAIntroduction

!!!Welcome

Thank you for downloading the POCO C++ Libraries and welcome to the growing community of POCO C++ Libraries
users. This document will help you in getting a smooth ride while installing and setting up the 
POCO C++ Libraries and going the first steps with the software.


!!!Setting Up The POCO C++ Libraries

The POCO C++ Libraries are delivered in full source code only. Due to the
large number of possible build configurations, no binary releases are provided
from the project maintainers. 
This means that you have to build the libraries and tools before you can use them the first time. 

<*Note: There are binary releases available as installation packages for
various operating systems (e.g., Debian Linux, Ubuntu Linux, OpenBSD,
OpenWRT, etc.). However, these packages are not maintained by the core
team and may not always be up to date.*>


!!Source Code Distribution Format

The source code for the POCO C++ Libraries is delivered in a ZIP file
for Windows users and/or in a compressed TAR file (.tar.gz or .tar.bz2)
for Unix/Linux users. Both archives contain the same files, the only
difference is that all text files in the ZIP files have line endings
suitable for Windows (CR-LF), while the text files in the TAR file have
line endings suitable for Unix/Linux (LF only).
All libraries and tools follow a common convention for the directory
layout. This directory layout is shown below.

    build/                     the build system for Unix/OpenVMS and additional utility scripts
        config/                build configurations for various Unix platforms
        rules/                 common build rules for all platforms
        scripts/               build and utility scripts
        vms/                   OpenVMS build system scripts
        vxconfig/              VxWorks build configurations
    
    bin/                       all executables (dynamic link libraries on Windows)
    bin64/                     all 64-bit executables (and DLLs)
    
    doc/                       additional documentation
    
    lib/                       all libraries (import libraries on Windows)
    lib64/                     all 64-bit libraries
    
    CppUnit/                   project and make/build files for the CppUnit unit testing framework
        doc/                   additional documentation
        include/
            CppUnit/           header files for CppUnit
        src/                   source files for CppUnit
        WinTestRunner/         Windows GUI for CppUnit
    
    Foundation/                project and make/build files for the Foundation library
        include/
            Poco/              header files for the Foundation library
        src/                   source files for the Foundation library
        testsuite/             project and make/build files for the Foundation testsuite
            src/               source files for the Foundation testsuite
            bin/               test suite executables
        samples/               sample applications for the Foundation library
    
    XML/                       project and make/build files for the XML library
        include/
            Poco/
                XML/           header files for the core XML library
                SAX/           header files for SAX support
                DOM/           header files for DOM support
        src/                   source files for the XML library
        testsuite/             project and make/build files for the XML testsuite
            src/               source files for the XML testsuite
            bin/               test suite executables
        samples/               sample applications for the XML library
    
    Net/                       project and make/build files for the Net library
        include/
            Poco/
                Net/           header files for the Net library
        src/                   source files for the Net library
        testsuite/             project and make/build files for the Net testsuite
            src/               source files for the Net testsuite
            bin/               test suite executables
        samples/               sample applications for the Net library
----

Depending on what package you have downloaded (Basic or Complete
Edition), there may be other libraries as well (such as Data, Crypto,
NetSSL_OpenSSL and Zip).


!!External Dependencies

The following libraries require third-party software (header files and
libraries) being installed to build properly:

  - NetSSL_OpenSSL and Crypt require OpenSSL.
  - Data/ODBC requires ODBC 
    (Microsoft ODBC on Windows, unixODBC or iODBC on Unix/Linux)
  - Data/MySQL requires the MySQL client.


!OpenSSL

Most Unix/Linux systems (including Mac OS X) already have OpenSSL
preinstalled, or OpenSSL can be easily installed using the system’s
package management facility. For example, on Ubuntu (or other
Debian-based Linux distributions) you can type

    $ sudo apt-get install openssl libssl-dev
----

to install the necessary packages.
If your system does not have OpenSSL, please get it from
http://www.openssl.org/ or another source. You do not have to build
OpenSSL yourself -- a binary distribution is fine.

The easiest way to install OpenSSL on Windows is to use a binary 
(prebuild) release, for example the one from Shining Light 
Productions that comes with a Windows installer
(http://www.slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html). 
Depending on where you have installed the OpenSSL libraries, 
you might have to edit the build script (buildwin.cmd), or add the 
necessary paths to the INCLUDE and LIB environment variables. You might also
have to edit the project settings if the names of the OpenSSL libraries
from your build differ from the names used in the project files.


!ODBC

The Data library requires ODBC support on your system if you want to
build the ODBC connector (which is the default). On Windows platforms,
ODBC should be readily available if you have the Windows SDK installed.
On Unix/Linux platforms, you can use [[http://www.iodbc.org/ iODBC]]
(preinstalled on Mac OS X) or [[http://www.unixodbc.org/ unixODBC]. On
Linux, use your distribution's package management system to install the
necessary libraries and header files. For example, on Ubuntu, type

    $ sudo apt-get install libiodbc2 libiodbc2-dev
---- 

to install the iODBC library and header files.

The Data/ODBC and Data/MySQL Makefiles will search for the ODBC and
MySQL headers and libraries in various places. Nevertheless, the
Makefiles may not be able to find the headers and libraries. In this
case, please edit the Makefile in Data/ODBC and/or Data/MySQL
accordingly.


!MySQL Client

The Data library requires the [[http://dev.mysql.com MySQL]] client
libraries and header files if you want to build the MySQL connector
(which is the default). On Windows platforms, use the MySQL client
installer to install the necessary files. On Unix/Linux platforms, use
the package management system of your choice to install the necessary
files. Alternatively, you can of course build MySQL yourself from
source.


!!Building On Windows

Microsoft Visual Studio 7.1 (2003), 8.0 (2005), 9.0 (2008) or 10.0
(2010) is required to build the POCO C++ Libraries on Windows platforms.
Solution and project files for all versions are included. For Visual
Studio 2008 and 2010, 64-bit (x64) builds are supported as well.
You can either build from within Visual Studio (<*Build->Batch
Build->Select All;Rebuild*>) or from the command line. To build from the
command line, start the Visual Studio .NET 2003/2005/2008/2010 Command
Prompt and go (<[cd]>) to the directory where you have extracted the POCO
C++ Libraries sources. Then, simply start the <*buildwin.cmd*> script and
pass as argument the version of visual studio (71, 80, 90 or 100). You
can customize what is being built by <*buildwin.cmd*> by passing appropriate
command line arguments to it. Call <*buildwin.cmd*> without arguments to see
what is available.

To disable certain components (e.g., NetSSL_OpenSSL or Data/MySQL) from
the build, edit the text file named <*components*> in the distribution
root directory and remove the respective lines.

Certain libraries, like NetSSL_OpenSSL, Crypto or Data/MySQL have
dependencies to other libraries. Since the build script does not know where to 
find the necessary header files and import libraries, you have to either add
the header file paths to the <[INCLUDE]> environment variable and the
library path to the <[LIB]> environment variable, or you'll have to edit the
buildwin.cmd script, where these environment variables can be set as
well. 

In order to run the test suite and the samples, the top-most bin
directory containing the resulting shared libraries must be in the PATH
environment variable.


!!Building On Unix/Linux/Mac OS X

For building on Unix platforms, the POCO C++ Libraries come with their
own build system. The build system is based on GNU Make 3.80 (or newer),
with the help from a few shell scripts. If you do not have GNU Make 3.80
(or newer) installed on your machine, you will need to download it from 
http://directory.fsf.org/devel/build/make.html and 
build and install it prior to building the POCO C++ Libraries.

You can check the version of GNU Make installed on your system with

    $ gmake --version
----

or

    $ make --version
----

Once you have GNU Make up and running, the rest is quite simple.
To extract the sources and build all libraries, testsuites and samples, simply

    $ gunzip poco-X.Y.tar.gz
    $ tar -xf poco-X.Y.tar
    $ cd poco-X.Y
    $ ./configure
    $ gmake -s
----

See the configure script source for a list of possible options.
For starters, we recommend <[--no-tests]> and <[--no-samples]>, to reduce build times.
On a multicore or multiprocessor machine, use parallel makes to speed up
the build (<[make -j4]>).

Once you have successfully built POCO, you can install it
to <*/usr/local*> (or another directory specified as parameter
to configure <[--prefix=<path>]>):

    $ sudo gmake -s install
----

You can omit certain components from the build. For example, you might
want to omit Data/ODBC or Data/MySQL if you do not have the corresponding
third-party libraries (iodbc or unixodbc, mysqlclient) installed
on your system. To do this, use the <[--omit]> argument to configure:

    $ ./configure --omit=Data/ODBC,Data/MySQL
----

<*IMPORTANT: Make sure that the path to the build directory does not
contain symbolic links. Furthermore, on Mac OS X (or other systems
with case insensitive filesystems), make sure that the characters in 
the path have the correct case. Otherwise you'll get an error saying
"Current working directory not under $PROJECT_BASE.".*>


!!Building On QNX Neutrino

For QNX Neutrino, the Unix build system (see the instructions above) is used.
You can use the build system to cross-compile for a target platform on a
Solaris or Linux host. Unfortunately, the Cygwin-based Windows host
environment has some major quirks that prevent the build system from
working there. You can also use the build system on a self-hosted QNX
system. The default build configuration for QNX (found in
build/config/QNX) is for a self-hosted x86 platform. To specify another
target, edit the CCVER setting in the build configuration file. For
example, to compile for a PowerPC target, specify
CCVER=3.3.1,gcc_ntoppcbe.

Service Pack 1 for QNX Neutrino 6.3 must be installed, otherwise compiling the
Foundation library will fail due to a problem with the <*<list>*> header in the
default (Dinkumware) C++ standard library.

When building on QNX, you might want to disable NetSSL_OpenSSL, Crypto and
some Data connectors, unless you have the necessary third party components
available:

    $ ./configure --omit=NetSSL_OpenSSL,Crypto,Data/ODBC,Data/MySQL
----


!!!Tutorials And Sample Code

Introductory documentation consisting of various documents and tutorials
in the form of slide decks can be found at the
[[http://pocoproject.org/documentation/ POCO C++ Libraries
Documentation]] page.

Sample applications demonstrating the various features of the POCO C++
Libraries are delivered with the source code. Every library's source
code directory
has a <*samples*> directory containing various sample applications.

When building the sample applications on platforms using the gmake-based
build system, please make sure that the environment variable
<[POCO_BASE]> contains
the path to the POCO C++ Libraries source tree root directory.


!!!Creating Your Own POCO-based Applications

The best way to create your first POCO-based application is by copying
one of the sample projects and making the desired changes. Examine the
project files and Makefiles to see what compiler options must be set for
your specific platform.
