# $Header: /cvsroot/gtk2-perl/gtk2-perl-xs/Glib/README,v 1.35.2.6 2004/06/13 16:23:33 muppetman Exp $

Glib version 1.043
==================

This module provides perl access to Glib and GLib's GObject libraries.
GLib is a portability and utility library; GObject provides a generic
type system with inheritance and a powerful signal system.  Together
these libraries are used as the foundation for many of the libraries
that make up the Gnome environment, and are used in many unrelated
projects.

This wrapper attempts to provide a perlish interface while remaining
as true as possible to the underlying C API, so that any reference
materials you can find on using GLib may still apply to using the
libraries from perl.  Where GLib's functionality overlaps perl's,
perl's is favored; for example, you will find perl lists and arrays in
place of GSList or GList objects.  Some concepts have been eliminated;
you need never worry about reference-counting on GObjects or GBoxed
structures.  Other concepts have been converted to a perlish analogy;
the GType id will never be seen in perl, as the package name serves
that purpose.  See the main Glib manpage for more information.

This module also provides facilities for creating wrappers for other
GObject-based libraries.  The documentation page of the gtk2-perl
project's website has information about this stuff; see
http://gtk2-perl.sourceforge.net/

INSTALLATION

To install this module type the following:

   perl Makefile.PL
   make
   make test
   make install


To avoid installing to a system directory, since this is a beta release,
you can change the installation prefix at Makefile.PL time with

   perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/some/other/place

This will install the module to the subdirectory lib/perl5 under the given
prefix.  If this is not already in perl's include path, you'll need to tell
perl how to get to this library directory so you can use it; there are three
ways:

  in your environment (the easiest):
    # assuming a bourne-style shell
    PERL5LIB=/some/other/place/lib/perl5/site_perl
    export PERL5LIB

  on the perl command line:
    perl -I /some/other/place/lib/perl5/site_perl yourscript

  in the code of your perl script:
    use lib '/some/other/place/lib/perl5/site_perl';
  

DEPENDENCIES

In order to use perl bindings for glib, you must have glib 2.x and its
prerequisites (pkg-config and a decent standard c library) installed.
glib-2.x is available from http://www.gtk.org, http://www.gnome.org,
etc.

Glib uses unicode internally; therefore this module requires perl 5.8.0
or newer.

You'll also need the following modules in order to build the Glib module
from source:

  ExtUtils::Depends >= 0.200
  ExtUtils::PkgConfig >= 1.00

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (C) 2003-2004 by the gtk2-perl team (see the file AUTHORS for the
full list)

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU Library General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any
later version.

This library 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 Library General Public License for more
details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public License along
with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA.