XStow is a replacement of GNU Stow (http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/)
written in C++. It supports all features of Stow with some extensions.

XStow as GNU Stow, are programs for managing the installation of
software packages, keeping them separate (/usr/local/stow/emacs
vs. /usr/local/stow/perl, for example) while making them appear to be
installed in the same place (/usr/local).

Stow requires Perl. But what's on systems where no Perl is available, or not
yet installed? I tried compiling Stow with perlcc, but it failed.

For compiling XStow a C++ compiler and a system with a couple of POSIX
functions are required. It does not depend on an interpreter. Static
compilation eg.: for resque disks are possible.

XStow installs packages in exact the same way like stow, so you
even can start a Linux From Scratch installation with XStow and when
Perl is running continue installation by using GNU Stow.

*) Name

The X in the name has nothing to do with X11 It simple stands for
Extended Stow (... I think).

*) Status:

It works fine.

*) Features:

  XStow generates Stow compatible symlinks. You can install a package
  with XStow and uninstall it with Stow.

  It also supports, the creation of symlinks with absolute path names,
  but this will brake compatibilty with Stow.

  *) automated stow directory detection
  *) automated traversable link detection (/usr/man is a link to /usr/share/man)

*) Planned Features:

  If you have any other ideas send a mail to [email protected], or the
  xstow mailing list: [email protected]

*) Future

  * By default full Stow compatibilty should be obtained. But more
    features will be impemented.

*) Why

  * Stow requires Perl. But what's on systems where is no Perl available,
    or not yet installed? I tried compiling Stow with perlcc, but it
    failed. This was the initial reason.

  * Stow lacks some features and I'm not very common with perl... So I
    implemented them in XStow.

*) Static versions
   
  If you enable static compiling 3 binaries 'xstow', 'xstow-static' 
  and 'xstow-stow' will be created.

  The 'xstow-static' version has no ncurses support 
  and the binary is compiled statically.

  Some extensions in the 'xstow-stow' target are disabled. This 
  results in a static replacement of GNU Stow, with less extensions and
  the binary is smaller than the xstow-static binary.

  If you are heaviliy using xstow it is recomended compiling these static 
  versions, since you are using xstow like one of the base system tools.
  Upgrading the libc with a static xstow is no problem.

*) Getting the binary smaller

  call ./configure --help and see which features can be disabled
  espacially the ncurses support is absolutely not required!

  An other way:

       $ make mini

  Will compile 2 binaries xstow-mini and xstow-mini-static
  This should work with a gcc compiler on linux and may work with
  other compilers on other systems.

*) Libraries

  - ncurses

  For better --help screen support XStow uses the ncurses library.
  With the help of this library XStow uses the available width of the
  terminal it is running on.

  If you don't compile XStow with ncurses support, the terminal width
  will be guessed as 80 characters wide.

  So the ncurses support is absolutely not required.
  


  All other required libraries are builtin (by side the libc and
  libstdc++)

  - format (builtin, required)

  supports a kind of typesafe printf()
  if the NFORMAT is defined the complete typechecking code of Format will
  be skipped. Only a dummy version of Format will be used. This code
  will be untypesafe. This feature was implemented cause we expect
  that when your code is already clean and well tested no type
  checking is required any more. It's just code ready to be released.

  - LeoIni (builtin, optional)

  supports configuration file reading. The library is not absolute
  portable. It requires a GNU like STL. The configure script 
  checks automatically if it can be used.

  - Arg (builtin, required)

  supports parsing of the command line, which can be a nitty gritty
  case.

  - CppDir (builtin, required)

  abstracts files and directories and provides some path manipulating
  functions.