XStow is a replacement of GNU Stow (http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/) written in C++. It supports all features of Stow with some extensions. XStow as GNU Stow, are programs for managing the installation of software packages, keeping them separate (/usr/local/stow/emacs vs. /usr/local/stow/perl, for example) while making them appear to be installed in the same place (/usr/local). Stow requires Perl. But what's on systems where no Perl is available, or not yet installed? I tried compiling Stow with perlcc, but it failed. For compiling XStow a C++ compiler and a system with a couple of POSIX functions are required. It does not depend on an interpreter. Static compilation eg.: for resque disks are possible. XStow installs packages in exact the same way like stow, so you even can start a Linux From Scratch installation with XStow and when Perl is running continue installation by using GNU Stow. *) Name The X in the name has nothing to do with X11 It simple stands for Extended Stow (... I think). *) Status: It works fine. *) Features: XStow generates Stow compatible symlinks. You can install a package with XStow and uninstall it with Stow. It also supports, the creation of symlinks with absolute path names, but this will brake compatibilty with Stow. *) automated stow directory detection *) automated traversable link detection (/usr/man is a link to /usr/share/man) *) Planned Features: If you have any other ideas send a mail to kingleo@gmx.at, or the xstow mailing list: xstow-general@lists.sourceforge.net *) Future * By default full Stow compatibilty should be obtained. But more features will be impemented. *) Why * Stow requires Perl. But what's on systems where is no Perl available, or not yet installed? I tried compiling Stow with perlcc, but it failed. This was the initial reason. * Stow lacks some features and I'm not very common with perl... So I implemented them in XStow. *) Static versions If you enable static compiling 3 binaries 'xstow', 'xstow-static' and 'xstow-stow' will be created. The 'xstow-static' version has no ncurses support and the binary is compiled statically. Some extensions in the 'xstow-stow' target are disabled. This result in a static replacement of GNU Stow, with less extensions and the binary is smaller than the xstow-static binary. If you are heaviliy using xstow it is recomended compiling these static versions, since you are using xstow like one of the base system tools. Upgrading the libc with a static xstow is no problem. *) Getting the binary smaller call ./configure --help and see which features can be disabled espacially the ncurses support is absolutely not required! An other way: $ make mini Will compile 2 binaries xstow-mini and xstow-mini-static This should work with a gcc compiler on linux and may work with other compilers on other systems. *) Libraries - ncurses For better --help screen support XStow uses the ncurses library. With the help of this library XStow uses the available width of the terminal it is running on. If you don't compile XStow with ncurses support, the terminal width will be guessed as 80 characters wide. So the ncurses support is absolutely not required. All other required libraries are builtin (by side the libc and libstdc++) - format (builtin, required) supports a kind of typesafe printf() if the NFORMAT is defined the whole typechecking code of Format will be skipped. Only a dummy version of Format will be used. This code will be untypesafe. This feature was implemented cause we expect that when your code is already clean and well tested no type checking is required any more. It's just code ready to be released. - LeoIni (builtin, optional) supports configuration file reading. The library is not absolute portable. It requires a GNU like STL. The configure script checks automatically if it can be used. - Arg (builtin, required) supports parsing of the command line, which can be a nitty gritty case. - CppDir (builtin, required) abstracts files and directories and provides some path manipulating functions.