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System Requirements

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In order to use arch , there are some software tools that you must already have available. These don't necessarily need to be on your PATH -- arch can use a separate PATH if you need it to.

GNU Make You will need GNU Make in order to build arch .

GNU Tar You must have GNU tar . More specifically, you must have a version of tar that has options:

        -zcf F          to create a gzip-compressed tar file called
                        F, where F may be `-', meaning to write
                        the tar file to the standard-output stream

        -zxf F          to extract files from a gzip-compressed tar
                        file called F, where F may be `-', meaning
                        to read the tar file from the standard-input
                        stream.  

        -T -            This option reads a list of files from
                        standard input.  Only those files are 
                        read or written to the archive -- others
                        are ignored.

        -m              When extracting files, don't restore
                        modification times.

GNU diff and GNU patch After much deliberation, I've decided to go ahead and rely on the GNU versions of diff and patch . Specifically, you need a version of diff that can generate "unified format" output (option -u ) and a version of patch that understands that format and that understand --posix . (It would be trivial to use "context diffs" and, thus, standard diff and patch , however, unified diffs are much easier to read, and I'm hoping that picking specific implementations of these critical sub-components will help contribute to the long-term stability of arch .)

Standard Posix Shell Tools The package framework (i.e., the configure and build process) assumes that some standard Posix shell tools are available on your system:

        awk
        cat
        chmod
        date
        echo
        find
        fold
        grep
        head
        ls
        mkdir
        printf
        pwd
        rm
        sed
        sh
        tee
        test
        touch
        tsort
        wc
        xargs

The null Device Your system must have /dev/null . Output directed to /dev/null should simply disappear from the universe, in the usual way.

arch Meets hello-world: A Tutorial Introduction to The arch Revision Control System
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