fppkg

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Introduction

Fppkg is the freepascal package manager. This tool manages packages from a repository, unzips, builds and installs.

See also FPMake.

Quick-start guide

Note: this section is only valid for fppkg from fpc version 2.5.1 or higher.

Setting up

When you run fppkg for the first time, it will create new configuration files with the default values. To check if these values are ok, run 'fppkg list'. You should see something like below.

Name                 Installed    Available   
a52                  2.5.1-1      -           
aspell               2.5.1-1      -           
bfd                  2.5.1-1      -           
lnet                 -            0.6.3-0  

If fppkg does not show any installed packages, you have to adapt the path to your fpc-installation in the default compiler configuration file.

By default this file is named '~/.fppkg/config/default' on Unix/Linux/Posix and '%appdata%\fpc\fppkg\config\default' on windows systems. If you have found this file, open it in your favourite text editor and change the 'GlobalInstallDir' to the location where fpc is installed. For example: 'GlobalInstallDir=/home/joost/fpc-trunk/lib/fpc/2.5.1/'. Save the file and run 'fppkg list' again.

If you have still problems please read the section about configuring fppkg.

Installing a package

Installing a package is as simple as 'fppkg install [packagename]'. This will download, compile and install the package. When no error appears, use 'fppkg list' to check if the package is correctly installed. By default the package is installed for the current user only, if you want to force a system-wide installation, use the '-g' parameter. Note however that in that case you need to have the proper rights.

Configuring the compiler

As a last step, the freepascal-compiler has to find the installed packages. By default the packages are installed in a user-specific location and this location is by default not searched by the compiler. To add it, add the following line to your fpc.cfg:

Linux: (/etc/fpc.cfg or ~/.fpc.cfg)

#-Fu~/.fppkg/lib/$fpcversion/units/$fpctarget/*

Windows: (fpc.cfg)

#-Fu...

Now you can use the units from the installed packages in all your programs

Commandline arguments

Output of fppkg -h

Usage: .../fppkg [options] <action> [package]
Options:
  -c --config        Set compiler configuration to use
  -h --help          This help
  -v --verbose       Show more information
  -d --debug         Show debugging information
  -g --global        Force installation to global (system-wide) directory
  -f --force         Force installation also if the package is already installed
  -r --recovery      Recovery mode, use always internal fpmkunit
Actions:
  update             Update packages list
  list               List available and installed packages
  build              Build package
  compile            Compile package
  install            Install package
  clean              Clean package
  archive            Create archive of package
  download           Download package
  convertmk          Convert Makefile.fpc to fpmake.pp

All the actions are described below.

The package parameter can mean the following:

  • Packagename:The package name as it appears on the used repository. All available package names are listed by 'fppkg list'.
  • Zipfile: The full name of a zip-file (including the .zip extension) which contains a package.
  • Current directory: When there is no package parameter, fppkg looks for a file called 'fpmake.pp' in the current directory, and if it is found, use the package defined by that file. In this case the compiled files are not placed elsewhere (See the 'BuildDir' setting) but within the 'units' directory in the current directory.

Actions

Update

Update packages list

List

List available and installed packages

Build

Build package

Install

Install package

Download

Download package

Convertmk

Convert Makefile.fpc to fpmake.pp

Configuration

Which configuration file is used?

Fppkg always uses three configuration files. One with some global information and two for the specific compiler that is used. When you have more then one version of freepascal installed you can use different configuration files for each version and select which configuration file you want to use.

When fppkg is started it tries to read it's global configuration first from a user-specific configuration file. See the table for the exact filenames. When this file does not exist it searches for a system-wide configuration file. If both files do not exist a configuration file is created. When the current user is a superuser, a system-wide configuration file is made, else a user-specific one. When creating the configuration file fppkg tries some reasonable defaults for all settings. When you set the location of the fpc-installation in the enviroment-option FPCDIR, fppkg will use this location in the generated configuration files.

Location of configuration files on different OS'es
OS User-specific configuration file System-wide configuration file
Unix/Linux ~/.config/fppkg.cfg /etc/fppkg.cfg
Windows %localsettings%\FreePascal\Packages.cfg

The location of the compiler-configuration files is given in the global-configuration file. When you want to know for sure which configuration files fppkg uses, add the '-d' parameter to fppkg. It will list which configuration files are used and all the used settings.

The global configuration file

The global configuration file contains general information for fppkg, like from which repository to load the packages from and where to place the package files. A typical global configuration file looks like this:

[Defaults]
ConfigVersion=4
LocalRepository=~/.fppkg/
BuildDir={LocalRepository}build/
ArchivesDir={LocalRepository}archives/
CompilerConfigDir={LocalRepository}config/
RemoteMirrors=http://www.freepascal.org/repository/mirrors.xml
RemoteRepository=auto
CompilerConfig=default
FPMakeCompilerConfig=default
Downloader=lnet

The following settings are available:

ConfigVersion
The versionnumber of the used configuration-file format. Is used internally to check if the configuration file is in the format fppkg expects.
LocalRepository
The location where local repository information is stored. Supports macros.
BuildDir
The location where packages are build. Supports macros.
ArchivesDir
Place where packages downloaded from a remote repository are stored. Supports macros.
CompilerConfigDir
Place where the compiler-configuration files can be found. Supports macros.
RemoteMirrors
The URL to a file which contains all mirrors for a remote repository.
RemoteRepository
Contains the repository which has to be used. Selecting 'auto' will result in a random repository selected from the mirror list.
Compilerconfig
The filename of the compiler-configuration file which has to be used by default.
FPMakeCompilerconfig
The filename of the compiler-configuration file which has to be used by default for compiling the fpmake.pp files.
Downloader
Select the download-mechanism. lnet is the default.

Compiler configuration files

A compiler configuration file contains all information necessary to select which fpc-compiler to use. A typical compiler-configuration file looks like this:

[Defaults]
ConfigVersion=4
GlobalInstallDir=/usr/local/lib/fpc/2.5.1/
LocalInstallDir={LocalRepository}lib/2.5.1/
Compiler=/usr/local/bin/fpc
OS=linux
CPU=x86_64
Version=2.5.1

The following settings are available:

ConfigVersion
The versionnumber of the used configuration-file format. Is used internally to check if the configuration file is in the format fppkg expects.
GlobalInstallDir
This is the location of where the compiler is installed. Supports macros.
LocalInstallDir
This is where packages are installed by default. Add this to the search path of the compiler if you want to use one of the packages installed into this location. Supports macros.
Compiler
The filename of the compiler which has to be used.
OS
The target OS.
CPU
The target CPU-family.
Version
The version of the used compiler.

Using macros in the configuration files

To make life easier you can use macros within the configuration-files. Macro's are between accolades '{}' and they are substituted on by some dynamic values. The following macros are available:

AppConfigDir
Returns the location where fppkg stores it's user-specific configuration files. In fact it calls GetAppConfigDir with Global=false.
UserDir
Returns the location of the user's home-directory. (GetUserDir)
LocalRepository
The value of LocalRepository in the global configuration file