= Compiling !MapServer =

This page offers tips and tricks for successfully compiling !MapServer on different operating systems.

  * [wiki:LinuxBuild LinuxRedHat]
  * [wiki:RedHat8AndMapserver37]
  * [wiki:RedHat9AndMapserver40b]
  * [wiki:RedHat9AndMapserver40]
  * [wiki:DebianLinux]
  * MicrosoftWindows
  * [wiki:MacOS] X
  * [wiki:Solaris8Build Solaris 8]
  * [wiki:SolarisStaticBuild Static Binary for Solaris]
  * FedoraC2 Mapserver4.2.3 Postgis0.9.0 etc(Spanish) 

== Using the "--with" option ==
I'm just building mapserver right now with as many of the options as I could feasibly get together. I ran "./configure" and it appeared to work correctly. When I went to run "make" though I get a cryptic error: "no input files" and it didn't do anything. Well, turns out, after 20 minutes of confusion (it had always compiled just fine before!!) I realized what I had done. I was trying to build in postgis support so I used the "--with-postgis" option. I had to tell it more specifically where to look for pg_config, so I used:

"--with-postgis=/usr/local/pgsql/bin" (where the pg_config program is located) But that wasn't right. I didn't notice it during the ./configure process, but it was complaining a dozen or so lines from the end - saying that I had specified a "directory" (as opposed to a file). So I then had to change it to "--with-postgis=/usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_config" and now "make" actually does something.

So I learned my lesson - sometimes the "--with" options need only a directory (ie. --with-proj=../proj) and sometimes, like above, they need a path to a specific file. I assume this applies to more than just my php example.

You can check if a file or a directory is needed by typing ./configure --help and check the listing there.

== "make clean" is your friend... ==
don't forget too that when tying out lots of ./configure --with-foo options to run "make clean" between compilations.

We haven't had luck with make clean as far as we can notice. jsbj

"make distclean" seems to work. ank