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<a name="Top"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="SEC_Top"></a>
<h1 class="settitle">Stow</h1>

<p>This manual describes GNU Stow 2.2.2 (9 November 2015), a
program for managing the installation of software packages.
</p>
<table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Introduction">1. Introduction</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">                Description of Stow.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">                 Terms used by this manual.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Invoking-Stow">3. Invoking Stow</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">               Option summary.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Ignore-Lists">4. Ignore Lists</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">                Controlling what gets stowed.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Installing-Packages">5. Installing Packages</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">         Using Stow to install.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Deleting-Packages">6. Deleting Packages</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">           Using Stow to uninstall.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Conflicts">7. Conflicts</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">                   When Stow can&rsquo;t stow.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Mixing-Operations">8. Mixing Operations</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">           Multiple actions per invocation.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Multiple-Stow-Directories">9. Multiple Stow Directories</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">   Further segregating software.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Target-Maintenance">10. Target Maintenance</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">          Cleaning up mistakes.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Resource-Files">11. Resource Files</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">              Setting default command line options.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime">12. Compile-time vs Install-time</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">  Faking out &lsquo;make install&rsquo;.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Bootstrapping">13. Bootstrapping</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">               When stow and perl are not yet stowed.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Reporting-Bugs">14. Reporting Bugs</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">              How, what, where, and when to report.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Known-Bugs">15. Known Bugs</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">                  Don&rsquo;t report any of these.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#GNU-General-Public-License">GNU General Public License</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">  Copying terms.
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Index">Index</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">                       Index of concepts.
</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3" align="left" valign="top"><pre class="menu-comment"> &mdash; The Detailed Node Listing &mdash;

Ignore Lists

</pre></th></tr><tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Motivation-For-Ignore-Lists">4.1 Motivation For Ignore Lists</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">  
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Types-And-Syntax-Of-Ignore-Lists">4.2 Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">  
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Justification-For-Yet-Another-Set-Of-Ignore-Files">4.3 Justification For Yet Another Set Of Ignore Files</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">  
</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3" align="left" valign="top"><pre class="menu-comment">
Advice on changing compilation and installation parameters

</pre></th></tr><tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#GNU-Emacs">12.2 GNU Emacs</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">                   
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Other-FSF-Software">12.3 Other FSF Software</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">          
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Cygnus-Software">12.4 Cygnus Software</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">             
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Perl-and-Perl-5-Modules">12.5 Perl and Perl 5 Modules</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">     
</td></tr>
<tr><th colspan="3" align="left" valign="top"><pre class="menu-comment">
</pre></th></tr></table>

<hr size="1">
<a name="Introduction"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Terminology" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Terminology" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Introduction-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">1. Introduction</h1>

<p>Stow is a tool for managing the installation of multiple software
packages in the same run-time directory tree.  One historical difficulty
of this task has been the need to administer, upgrade, install, and
remove files in independent packages without confusing them with other
files sharing the same file system space.  For instance, it is common to
install Perl and Emacs in &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo;.  When one does so, one
winds up with the following files<a name="DOCF1" href="#FOOT1">(1)</a> in &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/man/man1</tt>&rsquo;:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">a2p.1
ctags.1
emacs.1
etags.1
h2ph.1
perl.1
s2p.1
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>Now suppose it&rsquo;s time to uninstall Perl.  Which man pages
get removed?  Obviously &lsquo;<tt>perl.1</tt>&rsquo; is one of them, but it should not
be the administrator&rsquo;s responsibility to memorize the ownership of
individual files by separate packages.
</p>
<p>The approach used by Stow is to install each package into its own
tree, then use symbolic links to make it appear as though the files are
installed in the common tree.  Administration can be performed in the
package&rsquo;s private tree in isolation from clutter from other packages.
Stow can then be used to update the symbolic links.  The structure
of each private tree should reflect the desired structure in the common
tree; i.e. (in the typical case) there should be a &lsquo;<tt>bin</tt>&rsquo; directory
containing executables, a &lsquo;<tt>man/man1</tt>&rsquo; directory containing section 1
man pages, and so on.
</p>
<p>Stow was inspired by Carnegie Mellon&rsquo;s Depot program, but is
substantially simpler and safer.  Whereas Depot required database files
to keep things in sync, Stow stores no extra state between runs, so
there&rsquo;s no danger (as there was in Depot) of mangling directories when
file hierarchies don&rsquo;t match the database.  Also unlike Depot, Stow will
never delete any files, directories, or links that appear in a Stow
directory (e.g., &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/emacs</tt>&rsquo;), so it&rsquo;s always possible
to rebuild the target tree (e.g., &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo;).
</p>
<p>For information about the latest version of Stow, you can refer to
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/">http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/</a>.
</p>

<hr size="6">
<a name="Terminology"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Introduction" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Invoking-Stow" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Introduction" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Invoking-Stow" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Terminology-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">2. Terminology</h1>

<a name="index-package"></a>
<p>A <em>package</em> is a related collection of files and directories that
you wish to administer as a unit &mdash; e.g., Perl or Emacs &mdash; and that needs
to be installed in a particular directory structure &mdash; e.g., with
&lsquo;<tt>bin</tt>&rsquo;, &lsquo;<tt>lib</tt>&rsquo;, and &lsquo;<tt>man</tt>&rsquo; subdirectories.
</p>
<a name="index-target-directory"></a>
<p>A <em>target directory</em> is the root of a tree in which one or more
packages wish to <em>appear</em> to be installed.  A common, but by no
means the only such location is &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo;.  The examples in this
manual will use &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo; as the target directory.
</p>
<a name="index-stow-directory"></a>
<p>A <em>stow directory</em> is the root of a tree containing separate
packages in private subtrees.  When Stow runs, it uses the current
directory as the default stow directory.  The examples in this manual
will use &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow</tt>&rsquo; as the stow directory, so that
individual packages will be, for example, &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl</tt>&rsquo;
and &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/emacs</tt>&rsquo;.
</p>
<a name="index-installation-image"></a>
<p>An <em>installation image</em> is the layout of files and directories
required by a package, relative to the target directory.  Thus, the
installation image for Perl includes: a &lsquo;<tt>bin</tt>&rsquo; directory containing
&lsquo;<tt>perl</tt>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<tt>a2p</tt>&rsquo; (among others); an &lsquo;<tt>info</tt>&rsquo; directory
containing Texinfo documentation; a &lsquo;<tt>lib/perl</tt>&rsquo; directory containing
Perl libraries; and a &lsquo;<tt>man/man1</tt>&rsquo; directory containing man pages.
</p>
<a name="index-package-directory"></a>
<a name="index-package-name"></a>
<p>A <em>package directory</em> is the root of a tree containing the
installation image for a particular package.  Each package directory
must reside in a stow directory &mdash; e.g., the package directory
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl</tt>&rsquo; must reside in the stow directory
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow</tt>&rsquo;.  The <em>name</em> of a package is the name of its
directory within the stow directory &mdash; e.g., &lsquo;<tt>perl</tt>&rsquo;.
</p>
<p>Thus, the Perl executable might reside in
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl/bin/perl</tt>&rsquo;, where &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo; is the
target directory, &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow</tt>&rsquo; is the stow directory,
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl</tt>&rsquo; is the package directory, and
&lsquo;<tt>bin/perl</tt>&rsquo; within is part of the installation image.
</p>
<a name="index-symlink"></a>
<a name="index-relative-symlink"></a>
<a name="index-absolute-symlink"></a>
<p>A <em>symlink</em> is a symbolic link.  A symlink can be <em>relative</em> or
<em>absolute</em>.  An absolute symlink names a full path; that is, one
starting from &lsquo;<tt>/</tt>&rsquo;.  A relative symlink names a relative path; that
is, one not starting from &lsquo;<tt>/</tt>&rsquo;.  The target of a relative symlink is
computed starting from the symlink&rsquo;s own directory.  Stow only
creates relative symlinks.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Invoking-Stow"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Terminology" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ignore-Lists" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Terminology" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ignore-Lists" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Invoking-Stow-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">3. Invoking Stow</h1>

<p>The syntax of the <code>stow</code> command is:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">stow [<var>options</var>] [<var>action flag</var>] <var>package &hellip;</var>
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>Each <var>package</var> is the name of a package (e.g., &lsquo;<samp>perl</samp>&rsquo;) in the stow
directory that we wish to install into (or delete from) the target directory.
The default action is to install the given packages, although alternate actions
may be specified by preceding the package name(s) with an <var>action flag</var>.
</p>
<p>The following options are supported:
</p>
<dl compact="compact">
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-d <var>dir</var></samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--dir=<var>dir</var></samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Set the stow directory to <var>dir</var>.  Defaults to the value of the environment
variable <code>STOW_DIR</code> if set, or the current directory otherwise.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-t <var>dir</var></samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--target=<var>dir</var></samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Set the target directory to <var>dir</var> instead of the parent of the stow
directory.  Defaults to the parent of the stow directory, so it is typical to
execute <code>stow</code> from the directory &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow</tt>&rsquo;.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--ignore=<var>regexp</var></samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>This (repeatable) option lets you suppress acting on files that match the
given perl regular expression.  For example, using the options
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">--ignore='*.orig' --ignore='*.dist'
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>will cause stow to ignore files ending in &lsquo;<tt>.orig</tt>&rsquo; or &lsquo;<tt>.dist</tt>&rsquo;.
</p>
<p>Note that the regular expression is anchored to the end of the filename,
because this is what you will want to do most of the time.
</p>
<p>Also note that by default Stow automatically ignores a &ldquo;sensible&rdquo;
built-in list of files and directories such as &lsquo;<tt>CVS</tt>&rsquo;, editor
backup files, and so on.  See section <a href="#Ignore-Lists">Ignore Lists</a>, for more details.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--defer=<var>regexp</var></samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>This (repeatable) option avoids stowing a file matching the given
regular expression, if that file is already stowed by another package.
This is effectively the opposite of &lsquo;<samp>--override</samp>&rsquo;.
</p>
<p>(N.B. the name &lsquo;<samp>--defer</samp>&rsquo; was chosen in the sense that the package
currently being stowed is treated with lower precedence than any
already installed package, not in the sense that the operation is
being postponed to be run at a later point in time; do not confuse
this nomenclature with the wording used in <a href="#Deferred-Operation">Deferred Operation</a>.)
</p>
<p>For example, the following options
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">--defer=man --defer=info
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>will cause stow to skip over pre-existing man and info pages.
</p>
<p>Equivalently, you could use &lsquo;<samp>--defer='man|info'</samp>&rsquo; since the
argument is just a Perl regex.
</p>
<p>Note that the regular expression is anchored to the beginning of the path
relative to the target directory, because this is what you will want to do most
of the time.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--override=<var>regexp</var></samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>This (repeatable) option forces any file matching the regular expression to be
stowed, even if the file is already stowed to another package. For example,
the following options
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">--override=man --override=info
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>will permit stow to overwrite links that point to pre-existing man and info
pages that are owned by stow and would otherwise cause a conflict.
</p>
<p>The regular expression is anchored to the beginning of the path relative to
the target directory, because this is what you will want to do most of the time.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--no-folding</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd>
<p>This disables any further <a href="#tree-folding">tree folding</a> or <a href="#tree-refolding">tree refolding</a>.
If a new subdirectory is encountered whilst stowing a new package, the
subdirectory is created within the target, and its contents are
symlinked, rather than just creating a symlink for the directory.  If
removal of symlinks whilst unstowing a package causes a subtree to be
foldable (i.e. only containing symlinks to a single package), that
subtree will not be removed and replaced with a symlink.
</p>
<a name="index-adopting-existing-files"></a>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--adopt</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p><strong>Warning!</strong> This behaviour is specifically intended to alter the
contents of your stow directory.  If you do not want that, this option
is not for you.
</p>
<p>When stowing, if a target is encountered which already exists but is a
plain file (and hence not owned by any existing stow package), then
normally Stow will register this as a conflict and refuse to proceed.
This option changes that behaviour so that the file is moved to the
same relative place within the package&rsquo;s installation image within the
stow directory, and then stowing proceeds as before.  So effectively,
the file becomes adopted by the stow package, without its contents
changing.
</p>
<p>This is particularly useful when the stow package is under the control
of a version control system, because it allows files in the target
tree, with potentially different contents to the equivalent versions
in the stow package&rsquo;s installation image, to be adopted into the
package, then compared by running something like &lsquo;<samp>git diff ...</samp>&rsquo;
inside the stow package, and finally either kept (e.g. via &lsquo;<samp>git
commit ...</samp>&rsquo;) or discarded (&lsquo;<samp>git checkout HEAD ...</samp>&rsquo;).
</p>
<a name="index-dry-run"></a>
<a name="index-simulated-run"></a>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-n</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--no</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--simulate</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Do not perform any operations that modify the file system; in combination with
&lsquo;<samp>-v</samp>&rsquo; can be used to merely show what would happen.
</p>
<a name="index-verbosity-levels"></a>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-v</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--verbose[=<var>n</var>]</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Send verbose output to standard error describing what Stow is
doing.  Verbosity levels are 0, 1, 2, and 3; 0 is the default.  Using
&lsquo;<samp>-v</samp>&rsquo; or &lsquo;<samp>--verbose</samp>&rsquo; increases the verbosity by one; using
&lsquo;<samp>--verbose=<var>n</var></samp>&rsquo; sets it to <var>n</var>.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-p</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--compat</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Scan the whole target tree when unstowing.  By default, only
directories specified in the <em>installation image</em> are scanned
during an unstow operation.  Scanning the whole tree can be
prohibitive if your target tree is very large.  This option restores
the legacy behaviour; however, the &lsquo;<samp>--badlinks</samp>&rsquo; option to the
<code>chkstow</code> utility may be a better way of ensuring that your
installation does not have any dangling symlinks (see section <a href="#Target-Maintenance">Target Maintenance</a>).
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-V</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--version</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Show Stow version number, and exit.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-h</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--help</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Show Stow command syntax, and exit.
</p></dd>
</dl>

<p>The following <var>action flags</var> are supported:
</p>
<dl compact="compact">
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-D</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--delete</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Delete (unstow) the package name(s) that follow this option from the <em>target
directory</em>. This option may be repeated any number of times.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-R</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--restow</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Restow (first unstow, then stow again) the package names that follow this
option.  This is useful for pruning obsolete symlinks from the target tree
after updating the software in a package. This option may be repeated any
number of times.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-S</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--stow</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>explictly stow the package name(s) that follow this option.  May be
omitted if you are not using the &lsquo;<samp>-D</samp>&rsquo; or &lsquo;<samp>-R</samp>&rsquo; options in the
same invocation.  See section <a href="#Mixing-Operations">Mixing Operations</a>, for details of when you
might like to use this feature. This option may be repeated any number
of times.
</p></dd>
</dl>


<hr size="6">
<a name="Ignore-Lists"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Invoking-Stow" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Motivation-For-Ignore-Lists" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Invoking-Stow" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
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<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
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<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Ignore-Lists-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">4. Ignore Lists</h1>

<a name="index-ignore-lists"></a>
<a name="index-ignoring-files-and-directories"></a>

<table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Motivation-For-Ignore-Lists">4.1 Motivation For Ignore Lists</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">  
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Types-And-Syntax-Of-Ignore-Lists">4.2 Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">  
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Justification-For-Yet-Another-Set-Of-Ignore-Files">4.3 Justification For Yet Another Set Of Ignore Files</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">  
</td></tr>
</table>

<hr size="6">
<a name="Motivation-For-Ignore-Lists"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ignore-Lists" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Types-And-Syntax-Of-Ignore-Lists" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ignore-Lists" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ignore-Lists" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Motivation-For-Ignore-Lists-1"></a>
<h2 class="section">4.1 Motivation For Ignore Lists</h2>

<p>In many situations, there will exist files under the package
directories which it would be undesirable to stow into the target
directory.  For example, files related version control such as
&lsquo;<tt>.gitignore</tt>&rsquo;, &lsquo;<tt>CVS</tt>&rsquo;, &lsquo;<tt>*,v</tt>&rsquo; (RCS files) should typically
not have symlinks from the target tree pointing to them.  Also there
may be files or directories relating to the build of the package which
are not needed at run-time.
</p>
<p>In these cases, it can be rather cumbersome to specify a
&lsquo;<samp>--ignore</samp>&rsquo; parameter for each file or directory to be ignored.
This could be worked around by ensuring the existence of
&lsquo;<tt>~/.stowrc</tt>&rsquo; containing multiple &lsquo;<samp>--ignore</samp>&rsquo; lines, or if a
different set of files/directories should be ignored depending on
which stow package is involved, a &lsquo;<tt>.stowrc</tt>&rsquo; file for each stow
package, but this would require the user to ensure that they were in
the correct directory before invoking stow, which would be tedious and
error-prone.  Furthermore, since Stow shifts parameters from
&lsquo;<tt>.stowrc</tt>&rsquo; onto ARGV at run-time, it could clutter up the process
table with excessively long parameter lists, or even worse, exceed the
operating system&rsquo;s limit for process arguments.
</p>
<a name="index-ignore-lists-1"></a>
<p>Therefore in addition to &lsquo;<samp>--ignore</samp>&rsquo; parameters, Stow provides a
way to specify lists of files and directories to ignore.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Types-And-Syntax-Of-Ignore-Lists"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Motivation-For-Ignore-Lists" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Justification-For-Yet-Another-Set-Of-Ignore-Files" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ignore-Lists" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ignore-Lists" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Types-And-Syntax-Of-Ignore-Lists-1"></a>
<h2 class="section">4.2 Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists</h2>

<p>If you put Perl regular expressions, one per line, in a
&lsquo;<tt>.stow-local-ignore</tt>&rsquo; file within any top level package directory,
in which case any file or directory within that package matching any
of these regular expressions will be ignored.  In the absence of this
package-specific ignore list, Stow will instead use the contents of
&lsquo;<tt>~/.stow-global-ignore</tt>&rsquo;, if it exists.  If neither the
package-local or global ignore list exist, Stow will use its own
built-in default ignore list, which serves as a useful example of the
format of these ignore list files:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example"><pre class="verbatim"># Comments and blank lines are allowed.

RCS
.+,v

CVS
\.\#.+       # CVS conflict files / emacs lock files
\.cvsignore

\.svn
_darcs
\.hg

\.git
\.gitignore

.+~          # emacs backup files
\#.*\#       # emacs autosave files

^/README.*
^/LICENSE.*
^/COPYING
</pre></pre></td></tr></table>

<p>Stow first iterates through the chosen ignore list (built-in, global,
or package-local) as per above, stripping out comments (if you want to
include the &lsquo;<samp>#</samp>&rsquo; symbol in a regular expression, escape it with a
blackslash) and blank lines, placing each regular expressions into one
of two sets depending on whether it contains the &lsquo;<samp>/</samp>&rsquo; forward
slash symbol.
</p>
<p>Then in order to determine whether a file or directory should be
ignored:
</p>
<ol>
<li>
Stow calculates its path relative to the top-level package directory,
prefixing that with &lsquo;<samp>/</samp>&rsquo;.  If any of the regular expressions
containing a &lsquo;<samp>/</samp>&rsquo; <em>exactly</em><a name="DOCF2" href="#FOOT2">(2)</a> match
a subpath<a name="DOCF3" href="#FOOT3">(3)</a> of this relative path, then the file or
directory will be ignored.

</li><li>
If none of the regular expressions containing a &lsquo;<samp>/</samp>&rsquo; match in the
manner described above, Stow checks whether the
<em>basename</em><a name="DOCF4" href="#FOOT4">(4)</a> of the file or directory matches
<em>exactly</em> against the remaining regular expressions which do not
contain a &lsquo;<samp>/</samp>&rsquo;, and if so, ignores the file or directory.

</li><li>
Otherwise, the file or directory is not ignored.
</li></ol>


<p>For example, if a file &lsquo;<tt>bazqux</tt>&rsquo; is in the &lsquo;<tt>foo/bar</tt>&rsquo;
subdirectory of the package directory, Stow would use
&lsquo;<samp>/foo/bar/bazqux</samp>&rsquo; as the text for matching against regular
expressions which contain &lsquo;<samp>/</samp>&rsquo;, and &lsquo;<samp>bazqux</samp>&rsquo; as the text for
matching against regular expressions which don&rsquo;t contain &lsquo;<samp>/</samp>&rsquo;.
Then regular expressions &lsquo;<samp>bazqux</samp>&rsquo;, &lsquo;<samp>baz.*</samp>&rsquo;, &lsquo;<samp>.*qux</samp>&rsquo;,
&lsquo;<samp>bar/.*x</samp>&rsquo;, and &lsquo;<samp>^/foo/.*qux</samp>&rsquo; would all match (causing the
file to be ignored), whereas &lsquo;<samp>bar</samp>&rsquo;, &lsquo;<samp>baz</samp>&rsquo;, &lsquo;<samp>qux</samp>&rsquo;, and
&lsquo;<samp>o/bar/b</samp>&rsquo; would not (although &lsquo;<samp>bar</samp>&rsquo; would cause its parent
directory to be ignored and prevent Stow from recursing into that
anyway, in which case the file &lsquo;<tt>bazqux</tt>&rsquo; would not even be
considered for stowing).
</p>
<p>As a special exception to the above algorithm, any
&lsquo;<tt>.stow-local-ignore</tt>&rsquo; present in the top-level package directory
is <em>always</em> ignored, regardless of the contents of any ignore
list, because this file serves no purpose outside the stow directory.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Justification-For-Yet-Another-Set-Of-Ignore-Files"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Types-And-Syntax-Of-Ignore-Lists" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ignore-Lists" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ignore-Lists" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Justification-For-Yet-Another-Set-Of-Ignore-Files-1"></a>
<h2 class="section">4.3 Justification For Yet Another Set Of Ignore Files</h2>

<p>The reader may note that this format is very similar to existing
ignore list file formats, such as those for <code>cvs</code>, <code>git</code>,
<code>rsync</code> etc., and wonder if another set of ignore lists is
justified.  However there are good reasons why Stow does not simply
check for the presence of say, &lsquo;<tt>.cvsignore</tt>&rsquo;, and use that if it
exists.  Firstly, there is no guarantee that a stow package would
contain any version control meta-data, or permit introducing this if
it didn&rsquo;t already exist.  
</p>
<p>Secondly even if it did, version control system ignore lists generally
reflect <em>build-time</em> ignores rather than <em>install-time</em>, and
there may be some intermediate or temporary files on those ignore
lists generated during development or at build-time which it would be
inappropriate to stow, even though many files generated at build-time
(binaries, libraries, documentation etc.) certainly do need to be
stowed.  Similarly, if a file is <em>not</em> in the version control
system&rsquo;s ignore list, there is no way of knowing whether the file is
intended for end use, let alone whether the version control system is
tracking it or not.
</p>
<p>Therefore it seems clear that ignore lists provided by version control
systems do not provide sufficient information for Stow to determine
which files and directories to stow, and so it makes sense for Stow to
support independent ignore lists.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Installing-Packages"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Justification-For-Yet-Another-Set-Of-Ignore-Files" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Tree-folding" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ignore-Lists" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deleting-Packages" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Installing-Packages-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">5. Installing Packages</h1>

<a name="index-installation"></a>
<p>The default action of Stow is to install a package.  This means creating
symlinks in the target tree that point into the package tree.  Stow
attempts to do this with as few symlinks as possible; in other words, if
Stow can create a single symlink that points to an entire subtree within
the package tree, it will choose to do that rather than create a
directory in the target tree and populate it with symlinks.
</p>
<p><a name="tree-folding"></a>
</p><hr size="6">
<a name="Tree-folding"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Tree-unfolding-1" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deleting-Packages" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h2 class="section">5.1 Tree folding</h2>
<a name="index-tree-folding"></a>
<a name="index-directory-folding"></a>
<a name="index-folding-trees"></a>
<p>For example, suppose that no packages have yet been installed in
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo;; it&rsquo;s completely empty (except for the &lsquo;<tt>stow</tt>&rsquo;
subdirectory, of course).  Now suppose the Perl package is installed.
Recall that it includes the following directories in its installation
image:  &lsquo;<tt>bin</tt>&rsquo;; &lsquo;<tt>info</tt>&rsquo;; &lsquo;<tt>lib/perl</tt>&rsquo;; &lsquo;<tt>man/man1</tt>&rsquo;.
Rather than creating the directory &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo; and populating
it with symlinks to &lsquo;<tt>../stow/perl/bin/perl</tt>&rsquo; and
&lsquo;<tt>../stow/perl/bin/a2p</tt>&rsquo; (and so on), Stow will create a
single symlink, &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo;, which points to
&lsquo;<tt>stow/perl/bin</tt>&rsquo;.  In this way, it still works to refer to
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin/perl</tt>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin/a2p</tt>&rsquo;, and fewer
symlinks have been created.  This is called <em>tree folding</em>, since an
entire subtree is &ldquo;folded&rdquo; into a single symlink.
</p>
<p>To complete this example, Stow will also create the symlink
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/info</tt>&rsquo; pointing to &lsquo;<tt>stow/perl/info</tt>&rsquo;; the symlink
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/lib</tt>&rsquo; pointing to &lsquo;<tt>stow/perl/lib</tt>&rsquo;; and the symlink
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/man</tt>&rsquo; pointing to &lsquo;<tt>stow/perl/man</tt>&rsquo;.
</p>
<p>Now suppose that instead of installing the Perl package into an empty
target tree, the target tree is not empty to begin with.  Instead, it
contains several files and directories installed under a different
system-administration philosophy.  In particular, &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo;
already exists and is a directory, as are &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/lib</tt>&rsquo; and
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/man/man1</tt>&rsquo;.  In this case, Stow will descend into
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo; and create symlinks to
&lsquo;<tt>../stow/perl/bin/perl</tt>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<tt>../stow/perl/bin/a2p</tt>&rsquo; (etc.),
and it will descend into &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/lib</tt>&rsquo; and create the
tree-folding symlink &lsquo;<tt>perl</tt>&rsquo; pointing to
&lsquo;<tt>../stow/perl/lib/perl</tt>&rsquo;, and so on.  As a rule, Stow only
descends as far as necessary into the target tree when it can create a
tree-folding symlink.  However, this behaviour can be changed via
the &lsquo;<samp>--no-folding</samp>&rsquo; option; see section <a href="#Invoking-Stow">Invoking Stow</a>.
</p>
<p><a name="Tree-unfolding"></a>
</p><hr size="6">
<a name="Tree-unfolding-1"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Tree-folding" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ownership" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deleting-Packages" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h2 class="section">5.2 Tree unfolding</h2>
<a name="index-splitting-open-folded-trees"></a>
<a name="index-unfolding-trees"></a>
<a name="index-tree-unfolding"></a>
<a name="index-tree-unsplitting"></a>
<p>The time often comes when a tree-folding symlink has to be undone
because another package uses one or more of the folded subdirectories in
its installation image.  This operation is called <em>splitting open</em> or
<em>unfolding</em> a folded tree.  It involves removing the original symlink from
the target tree, creating a true directory in its place, and then populating the
new directory with symlinks to the newly-installed package <em>and</em> to
the old package that used the old symlink.  For example, suppose that
after installing Perl into an empty &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo;, we wish to
install Emacs.  Emacs&rsquo;s installation image includes a &lsquo;<tt>bin</tt>&rsquo;
directory containing the &lsquo;<tt>emacs</tt>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<tt>etags</tt>&rsquo; executables,
among others.  Stow must make these files appear to be installed
in &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo;, but presently &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo; is a
symlink to &lsquo;<tt>stow/perl/bin</tt>&rsquo;.  Stow therefore takes the
following steps:  the symlink &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo; is deleted; the
directory &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo; is created; links are made from
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo; to &lsquo;<tt>../stow/emacs/bin/emacs</tt>&rsquo; and
&lsquo;<tt>../stow/emacs/bin/etags</tt>&rsquo;; and links are made from
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo; to &lsquo;<tt>../stow/perl/bin/perl</tt>&rsquo; and
&lsquo;<tt>../stow/perl/bin/a2p</tt>&rsquo;.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Ownership"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Tree-unfolding-1" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Conflicts-during-installation" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deleting-Packages" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h2 class="section">5.3 Ownership</h2>
<a name="index-ownership"></a>
<p>When splitting open a folded tree, Stow makes sure that the
symlink it is about to remove points inside a valid package in the
current stow directory.  <em>Stow will never delete anything
that it doesn&rsquo;t own</em>.  Stow &ldquo;owns&rdquo; everything living in the
target tree that points into a package in the stow directory.  Anything
Stow owns, it can recompute if lost: symlinks that point into a package in
the stow directory, or directories that only contain symlinks that stow
&ldquo;owns&rdquo;.   Note that by this definition, Stow doesn&rsquo;t &ldquo;own&rdquo; anything
<em>in</em> the stow directory or in any of the packages.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Conflicts-during-installation"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Ownership" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deleting-Packages" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deleting-Packages" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h2 class="section">5.4 Conflicts during installation</h2>
<a name="index-conflicts"></a>
<a name="index-installation-conflicts"></a>
<p>If Stow needs to create a directory or a symlink in the target
tree and it cannot because that name is already in use and is not owned
by Stow, then a <em>conflict</em> has arisen.  See section <a href="#Conflicts">Conflicts</a>.
</p>

<hr size="6">
<a name="Deleting-Packages"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Conflicts-during-installation" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Refolding-_0060_0060foldable_0027_0027-trees_002e" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Installing-Packages" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Conflicts" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Deleting-Packages-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">6. Deleting Packages</h1>

<a name="index-deletion"></a>
<p>When the &lsquo;<samp>-D</samp>&rsquo; option is given, the action of Stow is to
delete a package from the target tree.  Note that Stow will not
delete anything it doesn&rsquo;t &ldquo;own&rdquo;.  Deleting a package does <em>not</em>
mean removing it from the stow directory or discarding the package
tree.
</p>
<p>To delete a package, Stow recursively scans the target tree, skipping over any
directory that is not included in the installation image.<a name="DOCF5" href="#FOOT5">(5)</a>
For example, if the target directory is &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo; and the
installation image for the package being deleted has only a &lsquo;<tt>bin</tt>&rsquo;
directory and a &lsquo;<tt>man</tt>&rsquo; directory at the top level, then we only scan
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin</tt>&rsquo; and  &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin/man</tt>&rsquo;, and not
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/lib</tt>&rsquo; or &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/share</tt>&rsquo;, or for that matter
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow</tt>&rsquo;.  Any symlink it finds that points into the package
being deleted is removed.  Any directory that contained only symlinks to the
package being deleted is removed.
</p>
<p><a name="tree-refolding"></a>
</p><hr size="6">
<a name="Refolding-_0060_0060foldable_0027_0027-trees_002e"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deleting-Packages" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Conflicts" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deleting-Packages" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deleting-Packages" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Conflicts" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h2 class="section">6.1 Refolding &ldquo;foldable&rdquo; trees.</h2>
<a name="index-refolding-trees"></a>
<a name="index-tree-refolding"></a>

<p>After removing symlinks and empty subdirectories, any directory that
contains only symlinks to a single other package is considered to be a
previously &ldquo;folded&rdquo; tree that was &ldquo;split open.&rdquo;  Stow will refold
the tree by removing the symlinks to the surviving package, removing
the directory, then linking the directory back to the surviving
package.  However, this behaviour can be prevented via the
&lsquo;<samp>--no-folding</samp>&rsquo; option; see section <a href="#Invoking-Stow">Invoking Stow</a>.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Conflicts"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Refolding-_0060_0060foldable_0027_0027-trees_002e" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deferred-Operation-1" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deleting-Packages" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Mixing-Operations" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Conflicts-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">7. Conflicts</h1>

<a name="index-conflicts-1"></a>
<p>If, during installation, a file or symlink exists in the target tree and
has the same name as something Stow needs to create, and if the
existing name is not a folded tree that can be split open, then a
<em>conflict</em> has arisen.  A conflict also occurs if a directory exists
where Stow needs to place a symlink to a non-directory.  On the
other hand, if the existing name is merely a symlink that already points
where Stow needs it to, then no conflict has occurred.  (Thus it
is harmless to install a package that has already been installed.)
</p>
<p>For complex packages, scanning the stow and target trees in tandem,
and deciding whether to make directories or links, split-open or fold
directories, can actually take a long time (a number of seconds).
Moreover, an accurate analysis of potential conflicts requires us to
take into account all of these operations.
</p>
<p><a name="Deferred-Operation"></a>
</p><hr size="6">
<a name="Deferred-Operation-1"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Conflicts" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Mixing-Operations" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Conflicts" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Conflicts" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Mixing-Operations" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h2 class="section">7.1 Deferred Operation</h2>
<a name="index-deferred-operation"></a>

<p>Since version 2.0, Stow now adopts a two-phase algorithm, first
scanning for any potential conflicts before any stowing or unstowing
operations are performed.  If any conflicts are found, they are
displayed and then Stow terminates without making any modifications to
the filesystem.  This means that there is much less risk of a package
being partially stowed or unstowed due to conflicts.
</p>
<p>Prior to version 2.0, if a conflict was discovered, the stow or unstow
operation could be aborted mid-flow, leaving the target tree in an
inconsistent state.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Mixing-Operations"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Deferred-Operation-1" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Multiple-Stow-Directories" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Conflicts" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Multiple-Stow-Directories" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Mixing-Operations-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">8. Mixing Operations</h1>
<a name="index-mixing-operations"></a>

<p>Since version 2.0, multiple distinct actions can be specified in a single
invocation of GNU Stow.  For example, to update an installation of Emacs from
version 21.3 to 21.4a you can now do the following:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">stow -D emacs-21.3 -S emacs-21.4a
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>which will replace emacs-21.3 with emacs-21.4a using a single invocation.
</p>
<a name="index-deferred-operation-1"></a>
<p>This is much faster and cleaner than performing two separate
invocations of stow, because redundant folding/unfolding operations
can be factored out.  In addition, all the operations are calculated
and merged before being executed (see <a href="#Deferred-Operation">Deferred Operation</a>), so the
amount of of time in which GNU Emacs is unavailable is minimised.
</p>
<p>You can mix and match any number of actions, for example,
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">stow -S pkg1 pkg2 -D pkg3 pkg4 -S pkg5 -R pkg6
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>will unstow pkg3, pkg4 and pkg6, then stow pkg1, pkg2, pkg5 and pkg6.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Multiple-Stow-Directories"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Mixing-Operations" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Target-Maintenance" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Mixing-Operations" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Target-Maintenance" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Multiple-Stow-Directories-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">9. Multiple Stow Directories</h1>

<p>If there are two or more system administrators who wish to maintain
software separately, or if there is any other reason to want two or more
stow directories, it can be done by creating a file named &lsquo;<tt>.stow</tt>&rsquo;
in each stow directory.  The presence of &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/foo/.stow</tt>&rsquo;
informs Stow that, though &lsquo;<tt>foo</tt>&rsquo; is not the current stow
directory, even if it is a subdirectory of the target directory,
nevertheless it is <em>a</em> stow directory and as such Stow
doesn&rsquo;t &ldquo;own&rdquo; anything in it (see section <a href="#Installing-Packages">Installing Packages</a>).  This will
protect the contents of &lsquo;<tt>foo</tt>&rsquo; from a &lsquo;<samp>stow -D</samp>&rsquo;, for instance.
</p>

<p>When multiple stow directories share a target tree, if a tree-folding
symlink is encountered and needs to be split open during an
installation, as long as the top-level stow directory into which the
existing symlink points contains &lsquo;<tt>.stow</tt>&rsquo;, Stow knows how to split
open the tree in the correct manner.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Target-Maintenance"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Multiple-Stow-Directories" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Resource-Files" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Multiple-Stow-Directories" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Resource-Files" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Target-Maintenance-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">10. Target Maintenance</h1>

<a name="index-maintenance"></a>
<p>From time to time you will need to clean up your target tree.  Since
version 2, Stow provides a new utility <code>chkstow</code> to help with
this.  It includes three operational modes which performs checks that
would generally be too expensive to be performed during normal stow
execution.
</p>
<p>The syntax of the <code>chkstow</code> command is:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">chkstow [<var>options</var>]
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>The following options are supported:
</p>
<dl compact="compact">
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-t <var>dir</var></samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--target=<var>dir</var></samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Set the target directory to <var>dir</var> instead of the parent of the stow
directory.  Defaults to the parent of the stow directory, so it is typical to
execute <code>stow</code> from the directory &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow</tt>&rsquo;.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-b</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--badlinks</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Checks target directory for bogus symbolic links. That is, links that point to
non-existent files.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-a</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--aliens</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Checks for files in the target directory that are not symbolic links. The
target directory should be managed by stow alone, except for directories that
contain a &lsquo;<tt>.stow</tt>&rsquo; file.
</p>
</dd>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>-l</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dt> &lsquo;<samp>--list</samp>&rsquo;</dt>
<dd><p>Will display the target package for every symbolic link in the stow target
directory.
</p>
</dd>
</dl>

<hr size="6">
<a name="Resource-Files"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Target-Maintenance" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Target-Maintenance" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Resource-Files-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">11. Resource Files</h1>
<a name="index-resource-files"></a>
<a name="index-configuration-files"></a>

<p>Default command line options may be set in &lsquo;<tt>.stowrc</tt>&rsquo; (current directory) or
&lsquo;<tt>~/.stowrc</tt>&rsquo; (home directory). These are parsed in that order, and effectively
prepended to you command line.  This feature can be used for some interesting
effects.
</p>
<p>For example, suppose your site uses more than one stow directory, perhaps in
order to share around responsibilities with a number of systems
administrators. One of the administrators might have the following in their
&lsquo;<tt>~/.stowrc</tt>&rsquo; file:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">--dir=/usr/local/stow2
--target=/usr/local
--ignore='~'
--ignore='^CVS'
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>so that the <code>stow</code> command will default to operating on the
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow2</tt>&rsquo; directory, with &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo; as the
target, and ignoring vi backup files and CVS directories.
</p>
<p>If you had a stow directory &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl-extras</tt>&rsquo; that
was only used for Perl modules, then you might place the following in
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl-extras/.stowrc</tt>&rsquo;:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">--dir=/usr/local/stow/perl-extras
--target=/usr/local
--override=bin
--override=man
--ignore='perllocal\.pod'
--ignore='\.packlist'
--ignore='\.bs'
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>so that when you are in the &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl-extras</tt>&rsquo;
directory, <code>stow</code> will regard any subdirectories as stow
packages, with &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo; as the target (rather than the
immediate parent directory &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow</tt>&rsquo;), overriding any
pre-existing links to bin files or man pages, and ignoring some cruft
that gets installed by default.
</p>

<hr size="6">
<a name="Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Resource-Files" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Advice-on-changing-compilation-and-installation-parameters" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Resource-Files" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Bootstrapping" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">12. Compile-time vs Install-time</h1>

<p>Software whose installation is managed with Stow needs to be installed
in one place (the package directory, e.g. &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl</tt>&rsquo;)
but needs to appear to run in another place (the target tree, e.g.,
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo;).  Why is this important?  What&rsquo;s wrong with Perl, for
instance, looking for its files in &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl</tt>&rsquo; instead
of in &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo;?
</p>
<p>The answer is that there may be another package, e.g.,
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl-extras</tt>&rsquo;, stowed under &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo;.  If
Perl is configured to find its files in &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl</tt>&rsquo;, it
will never find the extra files in the &lsquo;<samp>perl-extras</samp>&rsquo; package, even
though they&rsquo;re intended to be found by Perl.  On the other hand, if Perl
looks for its files in &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo;, then it will find the
intermingled Perl and &lsquo;<samp>perl-extras</samp>&rsquo; files.
</p>
<p>This means that when you compile a package, you must tell it the
location of the run-time, or target tree; but when you install it, you
must place it in the stow tree.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Advice-on-changing-compilation-and-installation-parameters"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#GNU-Emacs" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Bootstrapping" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h2 class="section">12.1 Advice on changing compilation and installation parameters</h2>
<p>Some software packages allow you to specify, at compile-time, separate
locations for installation and for run-time.  Perl is one such package;
see <a href="#Perl-and-Perl-5-Modules">Perl and Perl 5 Modules</a>.  Others allow you to compile the
package, then give a different destination in the &lsquo;<samp>make install</samp>&rsquo;
step without causing the binaries or other files to get rebuilt.  Most
GNU software falls into this category; Emacs is a notable exception.
See section <a href="#GNU-Emacs">GNU Emacs</a>, and <a href="#Other-FSF-Software">Other FSF Software</a>.
</p>
<p>Still other software packages cannot abide the idea of separate
installation and run-time locations at all.  If you try to &lsquo;<samp>make
install prefix=/usr/local/stow/<var>foo</var></samp>&rsquo;, then first the whole package
will be recompiled to hardwire the &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/<var>foo</var></tt>&rsquo;
path.  With these packages, it is best to compile normally, then run
&lsquo;<samp>make -n install</samp>&rsquo;, which should report all the steps needed to
install the just-built software.  Place this output into a file, edit
the commands in the file to remove recompilation steps and to reflect
the Stow-based installation location, and execute the edited file as a
shell script in place of &lsquo;<samp>make install</samp>&rsquo;.  Be sure to execute the
script using the same shell that &lsquo;<samp>make install</samp>&rsquo; would have used.
</p>
<p>(If you use GNU Make and a shell [such as GNU bash] that understands
<code>pushd</code> and <code>popd</code>, you can do the following:
</p>
<ol>
<li>
Replace all lines matching &lsquo;<samp>make[<var>n</var>]: Entering directory
<var>dir</var></samp>&rsquo; with &lsquo;<samp>pushd <var>dir</var></samp>&rsquo;.
</li><li>
Replace all lines matching &lsquo;<samp>make[<var>n</var>]: Leaving directory
<var>dir</var></samp>&rsquo; with &lsquo;<samp>popd</samp>&rsquo;.
</li><li>
Delete all lines matching &lsquo;<samp>make[<var>n</var>]: Nothing to be done for
<var>rule</var></samp>&rsquo;.
</li></ol>

<p>Then find other lines in the output containing <code>cd</code> or <code>make</code>
commands and rewrite or delete them.  In particular, you should be able
to delete sections of the script that resemble this:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">for i in <var>dir_1</var> <var>dir_2</var> <span class="roman">&hellip;</span>; do \
  (cd $i; make <var>args</var> <span class="roman">&hellip;</span>) \
done
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>Note, that&rsquo;s &ldquo;should be able to,&rdquo; not &ldquo;can.&rdquo;  Be sure to modulate
these guidelines with plenty of your own intelligence.
</p>
<p>The details of stowing some specific packages are described in the
following sections.
</p>
<table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#GNU-Emacs">12.2 GNU Emacs</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">                   
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Other-FSF-Software">12.3 Other FSF Software</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">          
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Cygnus-Software">12.4 Cygnus Software</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">             
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><a href="#Perl-and-Perl-5-Modules">12.5 Perl and Perl 5 Modules</a></td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">     
</td></tr>
</table>

<hr size="6">
<a name="GNU-Emacs"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Advice-on-changing-compilation-and-installation-parameters" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Other-FSF-Software" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Bootstrapping" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="GNU-Emacs-1"></a>
<h2 class="section">12.2 GNU Emacs</h2>

<p>Although the Free Software Foundation has many enlightened practices
regarding Makefiles and software installation (see see section <a href="#Other-FSF-Software">Other FSF Software</a>), Emacs, its flagship program, doesn&rsquo;t quite follow the
rules.  In particular, most GNU software allows you to write:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">make
make install prefix=/usr/local/stow/<var>package</var>
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>If you try this with Emacs, then the new value for <var>prefix</var> in the
&lsquo;<samp>make install</samp>&rsquo; step will cause some files to get recompiled with
the new value of <var>prefix</var> wired into them.  In Emacs 19.23 and
later,<a name="DOCF6" href="#FOOT6">(6)</a>
the way to work around this problem is:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">make
make install-arch-dep install-arch-indep prefix=/usr/local/stow/emacs
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>In 19.22 and some prior versions of Emacs, the workaround was:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">make
make do-install prefix=/usr/local/stow/emacs
</pre></td></tr></table>

<hr size="6">
<a name="Other-FSF-Software"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#GNU-Emacs" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Cygnus-Software" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Bootstrapping" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Other-FSF-Software-1"></a>
<h2 class="section">12.3 Other FSF Software</h2>

<p>The Free Software Foundation, the organization behind the GNU project,
has been unifying the build procedure for its tools for some time.
Thanks to its tools &lsquo;<samp>autoconf</samp>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<samp>automake</samp>&rsquo;, most packages
now respond well to these simple steps, with no other intervention
necessary:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">./configure <var>options</var>
make
make install prefix=/usr/local/stow/<var>package</var>
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>Hopefully, these tools can evolve to be aware of Stow-managed packages,
such that providing an option to &lsquo;<samp>configure</samp>&rsquo; can allow &lsquo;<samp>make</samp>&rsquo;
and &lsquo;<samp>make install</samp>&rsquo; steps to work correctly without needing to
&ldquo;fool&rdquo; the build process.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Cygnus-Software"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Other-FSF-Software" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Perl-and-Perl-5-Modules" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Bootstrapping" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Cygnus-Software-1"></a>
<h2 class="section">12.4 Cygnus Software</h2>

<p>Cygnus is a commercial supplier and supporter of GNU software.  It has
also written several of its own packages, released under the terms of
the GNU General Public License; and it has taken over the maintenance of
other packages.  Among the packages released by Cygnus are &lsquo;<samp>gdb</samp>&rsquo;,
&lsquo;<samp>gnats</samp>&rsquo;, and &lsquo;<samp>dejagnu</samp>&rsquo;.
</p>
<p>Cygnus packages have the peculiarity that each one unpacks into a
directory tree with a generic top-level Makefile, which is set up to
compile <em>all</em> of Cygnus&rsquo; packages, any number of which may reside
under the top-level directory.  In other words, even if you&rsquo;re only
building &lsquo;<samp>gnats</samp>&rsquo;, the top-level Makefile will look for, and try to
build, &lsquo;<tt>gdb</tt>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<tt>dejagnu</tt>&rsquo; subdirectories, among many others.
</p>
<p>The result is that if you try &lsquo;<samp>make -n install
prefix=/usr/local/stow/<var>package</var></samp>&rsquo; at the top level of a Cygnus
package, you&rsquo;ll get a bewildering amount of output.  It will then be
very difficult to visually scan the output to see whether the install
will proceed correctly.  Unfortunately, it&rsquo;s not always clear how to
invoke an install from the subdirectory of interest.
</p>
<p>In cases like this, the best approach is to run your &lsquo;<samp>make install
prefix=<span class="roman">&hellip;</span></samp>&rsquo;, but be ready to interrupt it if you detect that it
is recompiling files.  Usually it will work just fine; otherwise,
install manually.
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Perl-and-Perl-5-Modules"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Cygnus-Software" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Bootstrapping" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Bootstrapping" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Perl-and-Perl-5-Modules-1"></a>
<h2 class="section">12.5 Perl and Perl 5 Modules</h2>

<p>Perl 4.036 allows you to specify different locations for installation
and for run-time.  It is the only widely-used package in this author&rsquo;s
experience that allows this, though hopefully more packages will adopt
this model.
</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the authors of Perl believed that only AFS sites need
this ability.  The configuration instructions for Perl 4 misleadingly
state that some occult means are used under AFS to transport files from
their installation tree to their run-time tree.  In fact, that confusion
arises from the fact that Depot, Stow&rsquo;s predecessor, originated at
Carnegie Mellon University, which was also the birthplace of AFS.  CMU&rsquo;s
need to separate install-time and run-time trees stemmed from its use of
Depot, not from AFS.
</p>
<p>The result of this confusion is that Perl 5&rsquo;s configuration script
doesn&rsquo;t even offer the option of separating install-time and run-time
trees <em>unless</em> you&rsquo;re running AFS.  Fortunately, after you&rsquo;ve
entered all the configuration settings, Perl&rsquo;s setup script gives you
the opportunity to edit those settings in a file called
&lsquo;<tt>config.sh</tt>&rsquo;.  When prompted, you should edit this file and replace
occurrences of
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">inst<span class="roman">&hellip;</span>/usr/local<span class="roman">&hellip;</span>
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>with
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">inst<span class="roman">&hellip;</span>/usr/local/stow/perl<span class="roman">&hellip;</span>
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>You can do this with the following Unix command:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">sed 's,^\(inst.*/usr/local\),\1/stow/perl,' config.sh &gt; config.sh.new
mv config.sh.new config.sh
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>Hopefully, the Perl authors will correct this deficiency in Perl 5&rsquo;s
configuration mechanism.
</p>
<p>Perl 5 modules&mdash;i.e., extensions to Perl 5&mdash;generally conform to a set
of standards for building and installing them.  The standard says that
the package comes with a top-level &lsquo;<tt>Makefile.PL</tt>&rsquo;, which is a Perl
script.  When it runs, it generates a &lsquo;<tt>Makefile</tt>&rsquo;.
</p>
<p>If you followed the instructions above for editing &lsquo;<tt>config.sh</tt>&rsquo; when
Perl was built, then when you create a &lsquo;<tt>Makefile</tt>&rsquo; from a
&lsquo;<tt>Makefile.PL</tt>&rsquo;, it will contain separate locations for run-time
(&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local</tt>&rsquo;) and install-time (&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl</tt>&rsquo;).
Thus you can do
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">perl Makefile.PL
make
make install
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>and the files will be installed into &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl</tt>&rsquo;.
However, you might prefer each Perl module to be stowed separately.  In
that case, you must edit the resulting Makefile, replacing
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl</tt>&rsquo; with &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/<var>module</var></tt>&rsquo;.
The best way to do this is:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">perl Makefile.PL
find . -name Makefile -print | \
  xargs perl -pi~ -e 's,^(INST.*/stow)/perl,$1/<var>module</var>,;'
make
make install
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>(The use of &lsquo;<samp>find</samp>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<samp>xargs</samp>&rsquo; ensures that all Makefiles in
the module&rsquo;s source tree, even those in subdirectories, get edited.)  A
good convention to follow is to name the stow directory for a Perl
<var>module</var> &lsquo;<tt>cpan.<var>module</var></tt>&rsquo;, where &lsquo;<samp>cpan</samp>&rsquo; stands for
Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, a collection of FTP sites that is
the source of most Perl 5 extensions.  This way, it&rsquo;s easy to tell at a
glance which of the subdirectories of &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow</tt>&rsquo; are Perl 5
extensions.
</p>
<p>When you stow separate Perl 5 modules separately, you are likely to
encounter conflicts (see section <a href="#Conflicts">Conflicts</a>) with files named &lsquo;<tt>.exists</tt>&rsquo;
and &lsquo;<tt>perllocal.pod</tt>&rsquo;.  One way to work around this is to remove
those files before stowing the module.  If you use the
&lsquo;<tt>cpan.<var>module</var></tt>&rsquo; naming convention, you can simply do this:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">cd /usr/local/stow
find cpan.* \( -name .exists -o -name perllocal.pod \) -print | \
  xargs rm
</pre></td></tr></table>


<hr size="6">
<a name="Bootstrapping"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Perl-and-Perl-5-Modules" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Reporting-Bugs" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Reporting-Bugs" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
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<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Bootstrapping-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">13. Bootstrapping</h1>

<p>Suppose you have a stow directory all set up and ready to go:
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/perl</tt>&rsquo; contains the Perl installation,
&lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/stow/stow</tt>&rsquo; contains Stow itself, and perhaps you have
other packages waiting to be stowed.  You&rsquo;d like to be able to do this:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">cd /usr/local/stow
stow -vv *
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>but <code>stow</code> is not yet in your <code>PATH</code>.  Nor can you do this:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">cd /usr/local/stow
stow/bin/stow -vv *
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>because the &lsquo;<samp>#!</samp>&rsquo; line at the beginning of <code>stow</code> tries to
locate Perl (usually in &lsquo;<tt>/usr/local/bin/perl</tt>&rsquo;), and that won&rsquo;t be
found.  The solution you must use is:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="example">cd /usr/local/stow
perl/bin/perl stow/bin/stow -vv *
</pre></td></tr></table>

<hr size="6">
<a name="Reporting-Bugs"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Bootstrapping" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Known-Bugs" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Bootstrapping" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Known-Bugs" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Reporting-Bugs-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">14. Reporting Bugs</h1>

<p>Please send bug reports to the current maintainers by electronic
mail.  The address to use is &lsquo;<samp>&lt;bug-stow@gnu.org&gt;</samp>&rsquo;.  Please
include:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
the version number of Stow (&lsquo;<samp>stow --version</samp>&rsquo;);

</li><li>
the version number of Perl (&lsquo;<samp>perl -v</samp>&rsquo;);

</li><li>
the system information, which can often be obtained with &lsquo;<samp>uname
-a</samp>&rsquo;;

</li><li>
a description of the bug;

</li><li>
the precise command you gave;

</li><li>
the output from the command (preferably verbose output, obtained by
adding &lsquo;<samp>--verbose=3</samp>&rsquo; to the Stow command line).
</li></ul>

<p>If you are really keen, consider developing a minimal test case and
creating a new test.  See the &lsquo;<tt>t/</tt>&rsquo; directory in the source for
lots of examples.
</p>
<p>Before reporting a bug, please read the manual carefully, especially
<a href="#Known-Bugs">Known Bugs</a>, to see whether you&rsquo;re encountering
something that doesn&rsquo;t need reporting.
(see section <a href="#Conflicts">Conflicts</a>).
</p>
<hr size="6">
<a name="Known-Bugs"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Reporting-Bugs" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#GNU-General-Public-License" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Reporting-Bugs" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#GNU-General-Public-License" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Known-Bugs-1"></a>
<h1 class="chapter">15. Known Bugs</h1>

<p>There are no known bugs in Stow version 2.2.2!
If you think you have found one, please see section <a href="#Reporting-Bugs">Reporting Bugs</a>.
</p>

<hr size="6">
<a name="GNU-General-Public-License"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Known-Bugs" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Preamble" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Known-Bugs" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="GNU-General-Public-License-1"></a>
<h1 class="unnumbered">GNU General Public License</h1>

<p align="center"> Version 2, June 1991
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="display">Copyright &copy; 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
</pre></td></tr></table>

<hr size="6">
<a name="Preamble"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#GNU-General-Public-License" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#How-to-Apply-These-Terms-to-Your-New-Programs" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#GNU-General-Public-License" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#GNU-General-Public-License" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h2 class="unnumberedsec">Preamble</h2>

<p>  The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
freedom to share and change it.  By contrast, the GNU General Public
License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
software&mdash;to make sure the software is free for all its users.  This
General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
Foundation&rsquo;s software and to any other program whose authors commit to
using it.  (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
the GNU Library General Public License instead.)  You can apply it to
your programs, too.
</p>
<p>  When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
price.  Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
</p>
<p>  To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
</p>
<p>  For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
you have.  You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
source code.  And you must show them these terms so they know their
rights.
</p>
<p>  We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
(2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
distribute and/or modify the software.
</p>
<p>  Also, for each author&rsquo;s protection and ours, we want to make certain
that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
software.  If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
authors&rsquo; reputations.
</p>
<p>  Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
patents.  We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
program proprietary.  To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
patent must be licensed for everyone&rsquo;s free use or not licensed at all.
</p>
<p>  The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
modification follow.
</p>
<p align="center"> TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
</p>
<ol>
<li>
This License applies to any program or other work which contains
a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
under the terms of this General Public License.  The &ldquo;Program&rdquo;, below,
refers to any such program or work, and a &ldquo;work based on the Program&rdquo;
means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
language.  (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
the term &ldquo;modification&rdquo;.)  Each licensee is addressed as &ldquo;you&rdquo;.

<p>Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope.  The act of
running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
</p>
</li><li>
You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program&rsquo;s
source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
along with the Program.

<p>You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
</p>
</li><li>
You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

<ol>
<li>
You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.

</li><li>
You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
parties under the terms of this License.

</li><li>
If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
License.  (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
</li></ol>

<p>These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole.  If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works.  But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
</p>
<p>Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
collective works based on the Program.
</p>
<p>In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
the scope of this License.
</p>
</li><li>
You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

<ol>
<li>
Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

</li><li>
Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,

</li><li>
Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
</li></ol>

<p>The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it.  For an executable work, complete source
code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
control compilation and installation of the executable.  However, as a
special exception, the source code distributed need not include
anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
itself accompanies the executable.
</p>
<p>If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
</p>
</li><li>
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this License.  Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
parties remain in full compliance.

</li><li>
You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
signed it.  However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
distribute the Program or its derivative works.  These actions are
prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.  Therefore, by
modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
the Program or works based on it.

</li><li>
Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions.  You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients&rsquo; exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
this License.

</li><li>
If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
excuse you from the conditions of this License.  If you cannot
distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
may not distribute the Program at all.  For example, if a patent
license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

<p>If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
circumstances.
</p>
<p>It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
implemented by public license practices.  Many people have made
generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
impose that choice.
</p>
<p>This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
be a consequence of the rest of this License.
</p>
</li><li>
If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
countries not thus excluded.  In such case, this License incorporates
the limitation as if written in the body of this License.

</li><li>
The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
of the General Public License from time to time.  Such new versions will
be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.

<p>Each version is given a distinguishing version number.  If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and &ldquo;any
later version&rdquo;, you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation.  If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.
</p>
</li><li>
If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
to ask for permission.  For software which is copyrighted by the Free
Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
make exceptions for this.  Our decision will be guided by the two goals
of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

<p align="center"> NO WARRANTY
</p>
</li><li>
BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.  EXCEPT WHEN
OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
PROVIDE THE PROGRAM &ldquo;AS IS&rdquo; WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  THE ENTIRE RISK AS
TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU.  SHOULD THE
PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

</li><li>
IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
</li></ol>

<p align="center"> END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
</p>

<hr size="6">
<a name="How-to-Apply-These-Terms-to-Your-New-Programs"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Preamble" title="Previous section in reading order"> &lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Next section in reading order"> &gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#GNU-General-Public-License" title="Beginning of this chapter or previous chapter"> &lt;&lt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#GNU-General-Public-License" title="Up section"> Up </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Next chapter"> &gt;&gt; </a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left"> &nbsp; </td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h2 class="unnumberedsec">How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs</h2>

<p>  If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.
</p>
<p>  To do so, attach the following notices to the program.  It is safest
to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
the &ldquo;copyright&rdquo; line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample"><var>one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.</var>
Copyright (C) 19<var>yy</var>  <var>name of author</var>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
</p>
<p>If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
when it starts in an interactive mode:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19<var>yy</var> <var>name of author</var>
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
type `show w'.  This is free software, and you are welcome
to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
for details.
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>The hypothetical commands &lsquo;<samp>show w</samp>&rsquo; and &lsquo;<samp>show c</samp>&rsquo; should show
the appropriate parts of the General Public License.  Of course, the
commands you use may be called something other than &lsquo;<samp>show w</samp>&rsquo; and
&lsquo;<samp>show c</samp>&rsquo;; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items&mdash;whatever
suits your program.
</p>
<p>You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
school, if any, to sign a &ldquo;copyright disclaimer&rdquo; for the program, if
necessary.  Here is a sample; alter the names:
</p>
<table><tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td><pre class="smallexample">Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright
interest in the program `Gnomovision'
(which makes passes at compilers) written
by James Hacker.

<var>signature of Ty Coon</var>, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
</pre></td></tr></table>

<p>This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program
into proprietary programs.  If your program is a subroutine library, you
may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications
with the library.  If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library
General Public License instead of this License.
</p>
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<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<a name="Index-1"></a>
<h1 class="unnumbered">Index</h1>

<table><tr><th valign="top">Jump to: &nbsp; </th><td><a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-A" class="summary-letter"><b>A</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-C" class="summary-letter"><b>C</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-D" class="summary-letter"><b>D</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-F" class="summary-letter"><b>F</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-I" class="summary-letter"><b>I</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-M" class="summary-letter"><b>M</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-O" class="summary-letter"><b>O</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-P" class="summary-letter"><b>P</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-R" class="summary-letter"><b>R</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-S" class="summary-letter"><b>S</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-T" class="summary-letter"><b>T</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-U" class="summary-letter"><b>U</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-V" class="summary-letter"><b>V</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
</td></tr></table>
<table border="0" class="index-cp">
<tr><td></td><th align="left">Index Entry</th><th align="left"> Section</th></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-A">A</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-absolute-symlink">absolute symlink</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-adopting-existing-files">adopting existing files</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Invoking-Stow">3. Invoking Stow</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-C">C</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-configuration-files">configuration files</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Resource-Files">11. Resource Files</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-conflicts">conflicts</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Conflicts-during-installation">5.4 Conflicts during installation</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-conflicts-1">conflicts</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Conflicts">7. Conflicts</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-D">D</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-deferred-operation">deferred operation</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Deferred-Operation-1">7.1 Deferred Operation</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-deferred-operation-1">deferred operation</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Mixing-Operations">8. Mixing Operations</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-deletion">deletion</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Deleting-Packages">6. Deleting Packages</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-directory-folding">directory folding</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Tree-folding">5.1 Tree folding</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-dry-run">dry run</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Invoking-Stow">3. Invoking Stow</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-F">F</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-folding-trees">folding trees</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Tree-folding">5.1 Tree folding</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-I">I</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-ignore-lists">ignore lists</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Ignore-Lists">4. Ignore Lists</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-ignore-lists-1">ignore lists</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Motivation-For-Ignore-Lists">4.1 Motivation For Ignore Lists</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-ignoring-files-and-directories">ignoring files and directories</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Ignore-Lists">4. Ignore Lists</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-installation">installation</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Installing-Packages">5. Installing Packages</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-installation-conflicts">installation conflicts</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Conflicts-during-installation">5.4 Conflicts during installation</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-installation-image">installation image</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-M">M</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-maintenance">maintenance</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Target-Maintenance">10. Target Maintenance</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-mixing-operations">mixing operations</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Mixing-Operations">8. Mixing Operations</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-O">O</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-ownership">ownership</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Ownership">5.3 Ownership</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-P">P</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-package">package</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-package-directory">package directory</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-package-name">package name</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-R">R</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-refolding-trees">refolding trees</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Refolding-_0060_0060foldable_0027_0027-trees_002e">6.1 Refolding &ldquo;foldable&rdquo; trees.</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-relative-symlink">relative symlink</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-resource-files">resource files</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Resource-Files">11. Resource Files</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-S">S</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-simulated-run">simulated run</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Invoking-Stow">3. Invoking Stow</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-splitting-open-folded-trees">splitting open folded trees</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Tree-unfolding-1">5.2 Tree unfolding</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-stow-directory">stow directory</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-symlink">symlink</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-T">T</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-target-directory">target directory</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-tree-folding">tree folding</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Tree-folding">5.1 Tree folding</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-tree-refolding">tree refolding</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Refolding-_0060_0060foldable_0027_0027-trees_002e">6.1 Refolding &ldquo;foldable&rdquo; trees.</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-tree-unfolding">tree unfolding</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Tree-unfolding-1">5.2 Tree unfolding</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-tree-unsplitting">tree unsplitting</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Tree-unfolding-1">5.2 Tree unfolding</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-U">U</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-unfolding-trees">unfolding trees</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Tree-unfolding-1">5.2 Tree unfolding</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
<tr><th><a name="Index-1_cp_letter-V">V</a></th><td></td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td valign="top"><a href="#index-verbosity-levels">verbosity levels</a></td><td valign="top"><a href="#Invoking-Stow">3. Invoking Stow</a></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"> <hr></td></tr>
</table>
<table><tr><th valign="top">Jump to: &nbsp; </th><td><a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-A" class="summary-letter"><b>A</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-C" class="summary-letter"><b>C</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-D" class="summary-letter"><b>D</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-F" class="summary-letter"><b>F</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-I" class="summary-letter"><b>I</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-M" class="summary-letter"><b>M</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-O" class="summary-letter"><b>O</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-P" class="summary-letter"><b>P</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-R" class="summary-letter"><b>R</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-S" class="summary-letter"><b>S</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-T" class="summary-letter"><b>T</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-U" class="summary-letter"><b>U</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
<a href="#Index-1_cp_letter-V" class="summary-letter"><b>V</b></a>
 &nbsp; 
</td></tr></table>

<hr size="6">
<a name="SEC_Foot"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Index" title="Index">Index</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h1>Footnotes</h1>
<h3><a name="FOOT1" href="#DOCF1">(1)</a></h3>
<p>As of Perl 4.036 and Emacs
19.22.
</p><h3><a name="FOOT2" href="#DOCF2">(2)</a></h3>
<p>Exact matching means the
regular expression is anchored at the beginning and end, in contrast
to unanchored regular expressions which will match a substring.
</p><h3><a name="FOOT3" href="#DOCF3">(3)</a></h3>
<p>In this context, &ldquo;subpath&rdquo; means a contiguous
subset of path segments; e.g for the relative path
&lsquo;<tt>one/two/three</tt>&rsquo;, there are six valid subpaths: &lsquo;<tt>one</tt>&rsquo;,
&lsquo;<tt>two</tt>&rsquo;, &lsquo;<tt>three</tt>&rsquo;, &lsquo;<tt>one/two</tt>&rsquo;, &lsquo;<tt>two/three</tt>&rsquo;,
&lsquo;<tt>one/two/three</tt>&rsquo;.
</p><h3><a name="FOOT4" href="#DOCF4">(4)</a></h3>
<p>The &ldquo;basename&rdquo; is the name of the file or
directory itself, excluding any directory path prefix - as returned by
the <code>basename</code> command.
</p><h3><a name="FOOT5" href="#DOCF5">(5)</a></h3>
<p>This
approach was introduced in version 2 of GNU Stow.  Previously, the whole
target tree was scanned and stow directories were explicitly omitted.  This
became problematic when dealing with very large installations.  The only
situation where this is useful is if you accidentally delete a directory in
the package tree, leaving you with a whole bunch of dangling links.  Note that
you can enable the old approach with the &lsquo;<samp>-p</samp>&rsquo; option.  Alternatively, you can
use the &lsquo;<samp>--badlinks</samp>&rsquo; option get stow to search for dangling links in your target tree and remove the offenders manually.
</p><h3><a name="FOOT6" href="#DOCF6">(6)</a></h3>
<p>As I write this, the current version of Emacs is 19.31.
</p><hr size="1">
<a name="SEC_Contents"></a>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="0">
<tr><td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#Top" title="Cover (top) of document">Top</a>]</td>
<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents">Contents</a>]</td>
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<td valign="middle" align="left">[<a href="#SEC_About" title="About (help)"> ? </a>]</td>
</tr></table>
<h1>Table of Contents</h1>
<div class="contents">

<ul class="toc">
  <li><a name="toc-Introduction-1" href="#Introduction">1. Introduction</a></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Terminology-1" href="#Terminology">2. Terminology</a></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Invoking-Stow-1" href="#Invoking-Stow">3. Invoking Stow</a></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Ignore-Lists-1" href="#Ignore-Lists">4. Ignore Lists</a>
  <ul class="toc">
    <li><a name="toc-Motivation-For-Ignore-Lists-1" href="#Motivation-For-Ignore-Lists">4.1 Motivation For Ignore Lists</a></li>
    <li><a name="toc-Types-And-Syntax-Of-Ignore-Lists-1" href="#Types-And-Syntax-Of-Ignore-Lists">4.2 Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists</a></li>
    <li><a name="toc-Justification-For-Yet-Another-Set-Of-Ignore-Files-1" href="#Justification-For-Yet-Another-Set-Of-Ignore-Files">4.3 Justification For Yet Another Set Of Ignore Files</a></li>
  </ul></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Installing-Packages-1" href="#Installing-Packages">5. Installing Packages</a>
  <ul class="toc">
    <li><a name="toc-Tree-folding" href="#Tree-folding">5.1 Tree folding</a></li>
    <li><a name="toc-Tree-unfolding-1" href="#Tree-unfolding-1">5.2 Tree unfolding</a></li>
    <li><a name="toc-Ownership" href="#Ownership">5.3 Ownership</a></li>
    <li><a name="toc-Conflicts-during-installation" href="#Conflicts-during-installation">5.4 Conflicts during installation</a></li>
  </ul></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Deleting-Packages-1" href="#Deleting-Packages">6. Deleting Packages</a>
  <ul class="toc">
    <li><a name="toc-Refolding-_0060_0060foldable_0027_0027-trees_002e" href="#Refolding-_0060_0060foldable_0027_0027-trees_002e">6.1 Refolding &ldquo;foldable&rdquo; trees.</a></li>
  </ul></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Conflicts-1" href="#Conflicts">7. Conflicts</a>
  <ul class="toc">
    <li><a name="toc-Deferred-Operation-1" href="#Deferred-Operation-1">7.1 Deferred Operation</a></li>
  </ul></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Mixing-Operations-1" href="#Mixing-Operations">8. Mixing Operations</a></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Multiple-Stow-Directories-1" href="#Multiple-Stow-Directories">9. Multiple Stow Directories</a></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Target-Maintenance-1" href="#Target-Maintenance">10. Target Maintenance</a></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Resource-Files-1" href="#Resource-Files">11. Resource Files</a></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime-1" href="#Compile_002dtime-vs-Install_002dtime">12. Compile-time vs Install-time</a>
  <ul class="toc">
    <li><a name="toc-Advice-on-changing-compilation-and-installation-parameters" href="#Advice-on-changing-compilation-and-installation-parameters">12.1 Advice on changing compilation and installation parameters</a></li>
    <li><a name="toc-GNU-Emacs-1" href="#GNU-Emacs">12.2 GNU Emacs</a></li>
    <li><a name="toc-Other-FSF-Software-1" href="#Other-FSF-Software">12.3 Other FSF Software</a></li>
    <li><a name="toc-Cygnus-Software-1" href="#Cygnus-Software">12.4 Cygnus Software</a></li>
    <li><a name="toc-Perl-and-Perl-5-Modules-1" href="#Perl-and-Perl-5-Modules">12.5 Perl and Perl 5 Modules</a></li>
  </ul></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Bootstrapping-1" href="#Bootstrapping">13. Bootstrapping</a></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Reporting-Bugs-1" href="#Reporting-Bugs">14. Reporting Bugs</a></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Known-Bugs-1" href="#Known-Bugs">15. Known Bugs</a></li>
  <li><a name="toc-GNU-General-Public-License-1" href="#GNU-General-Public-License">GNU General Public License</a>
  <ul class="toc">
    <li><a name="toc-Preamble" href="#Preamble">Preamble</a></li>
    <li><a name="toc-How-to-Apply-These-Terms-to-Your-New-Programs" href="#How-to-Apply-These-Terms-to-Your-New-Programs">How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs</a></li>
  </ul></li>
  <li><a name="toc-Index-1" href="#Index">Index</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
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<h1>About This Document</h1>
<p>
  This document was generated by <em>Adam Spiers</em> on <em>November 9, 2015</em> using <a href="http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/"><em>texi2html 1.82</em></a>.
</p>
<p>
  The buttons in the navigation panels have the following meaning:
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    <td> &nbsp; </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td align="center"> [Index] </td>
    <td align="center">Index</td>
    <td>Index</td>
    <td> &nbsp; </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td align="center"> [ ? ] </td>
    <td align="center">About</td>
    <td>About (help)</td>
    <td> &nbsp; </td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p>
  where the <strong> Example </strong> assumes that the current position is at <strong> Subsubsection One-Two-Three </strong> of a document of the following structure:
</p>

<ul>
  <li> 1. Section One
    <ul>
      <li>1.1 Subsection One-One
        <ul>
          <li>...</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
      <li>1.2 Subsection One-Two
        <ul>
          <li>1.2.1 Subsubsection One-Two-One</li>
          <li>1.2.2 Subsubsection One-Two-Two</li>
          <li>1.2.3 Subsubsection One-Two-Three &nbsp; &nbsp;
            <strong>&lt;== Current Position </strong></li>
          <li>1.2.4 Subsubsection One-Two-Four</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
      <li>1.3 Subsection One-Three
        <ul>
          <li>...</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
      <li>1.4 Subsection One-Four</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

<hr size="1">
<p>
 <font size="-1">
  This document was generated by <em>Adam Spiers</em> on <em>November 9, 2015</em> using <a href="http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/"><em>texi2html 1.82</em></a>.
 </font>
 <br>

</p>
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