--- /dev/null
+With the author's permission, SimGear now bundles MetaKit. MetaKit is
+ explained
+
+The MetaKit Library 2.01 March 2000
+==============================================================================
+
+
+WHAT IT IS - MetaKit is an embeddable database which runs on Unix, Windows,
+ Macintosh, and other platforms. It lets you build applications which
+ store their data efficiently, in a portable way, and which will not need a
+ complex runtime installation. In terms of the data model, MetaKit takes
+ the middle ground between RDBMS, OODBMS, and flat-file databases - yet it
+ is quite different from each of them.
+
+WHAT IT ISN'T - MetaKit is not: 1) multi-user/-threading, 2) scalable to
+ gigabytes, 3) proprietary software, 4) full of bugs, 5) just a toy.
+
+TECHNOLOGY - Everything is stored variable-sized yet with efficient positional
+ row access. Changing an existing datafile structure is as simple as re-
+ opening it with that new structure. All changes are transacted. You can
+ mix and match software written in C++, Python, and Tcl. Things can't get
+ much more flexible...
+
+CORE - The Metakit core library is written in C++. It has a code footprint of
+ just over 100 Kb on Windows. It can be used as DLL, or linked statically.
+ Debug builds include extensive assertion checks to catch problems early.
+
+PYTHON - The binding for Python is called "Mk4py". It uses SCXX by Gordon
+ McMillan as C++ glue interface. The source is in directory "python/".
+
+TCL/TK - The MK extension for Tcl is called "Mk4tcl". It is being used in a
+ number of commercial projects, for in-house use as well as in commercially
+ distributed products. The source is in directory "tcl/".
+
+LICENSE AND SUPPORT - MetaKit 2.01 is distributed as open source software (the
+ X/MIT-style license is at the end of this document). Commercial support
+ is available through an Enterprise License, see the URL mentioned below.
+
+DOCUMENTATION - All documentation uses HTML. The main page is "MetaKit.html",
+ which leads to the rest of the documentation in the "doc/" directory.
+
+WEBSITE URLS - The main pages on the world wide web, for news and downloads:
+ Homepage: http://www.equi4.com/metakit/
+ Python news: http://www.equi4.com/metakit/python.html
+ Tcl/Tk news: http://www.equi4.com/metakit/tcl.html
+ License info: http://www.equi4.com/metakit/license.html
+ Contact info: http://www.equi4.com/contact.html
+
+
+INSTALLATION
+============
+
+Starting with this release, all platform builds and language bindings are now
+designed to work from a single common "builds/" directory. It turns out to
+be impossible to keep build side-effects limited to *just* this directory
+(CodeWarrior can't be told where to place its temp data, and Visual C++ still
+alters a few files next to the project ".dsw" file, to name two offenders).
+
+UNIX
+
+ It is no longer advised to build the Unix code in the "unix/" directory.
+ Instead, you should perform the following steps:
+ % cd builds
+ % ../unix/configure
+ % make
+ % make test
+ And optionally (this only installs the core lib, not script extensions):
+ % make install
+
+ By switching to the "builds/" directory, you will keep the distribution
+ directory tree 100% unaltered. All changes are made in this subdir, and
+ all final build results are left behind in this same subdir.
+
+ Nastiness: if you build Mk4tcl, please do a "make Mk4tcl.so" as well.
+ And if you intend to create the Python extension, do a "make Mk4py.so".
+ The "libmk4tcl.so.0.0.0" and "libMk4py.so.0.0.0" targets are bogus ones.
+
+ You will probably have to make changes in the makefile to locate the
+ proper includes and libs for Python (Tcl has been fixed, see "--with-tcl).
+ You probably only need to adjust "CXX_SWITCHES_PY" to find the headers.
+
+ To build with STL containers and strings, you can do the following:
+ make CXXFLAGS='-Dq4_STD' test # add -O3 etc, as needed
+ This passes the test suite on Linux RedHat 5.2 with gcc 2.95-2.
+
+ See below for some platform-specific build notes.
+
+WINDOWS
+
+ There is a "win/" directory which contains subdirectories for a number of
+ compiler systems. MetaKit has been built with many different compilers
+ in the past (Microsoft, Borland, Watcom, Symantec, Metrowerks, Optima),
+ but to preserve my sanity (there are 12 configurations for MSVC6 alone!),
+ I am limiting myself to MSVC6, MWCW5, Borland C++ Builder 4, and Cygwin.
+
+ The MS Visual C++ 6.0 project is "win/msvc60/mksrc.dsw", with subprojects
+ for the C++ demo (mkdemo), building dll's (mkdll), static libs (mklib),
+ regression tests (mktest), as well as Tcl (mktcl) and Python (mkpython).
+ It has been set up to place all intermediate files and final results in
+ the "builds/" subdirectory, even though you'll launch it from "win/".
+
+ To build with STL containers and strings under MSVC, define "q4_STD".
+ To build with MFC containers and strings under MSVC, define "q4_MFC".
+
+ The Metrowerks Codewarrior project is in the "mac/" directory, and can be
+ used to build both Mac and Windows versions (on either Mac *or* Windows).
+ The core libraries are built with "mac/cw5.mcp", demos / tests are built
+ with "cw5apps.mcp", Tcl is "cw5tcl.mcp", and Python is "cw5python.mcp".
+
+ The Borland C++ Builder projects have not yet been incorporated in this
+ release, but the "KitViewer" application is an example of how to use BCB.
+
+ The Cygwin build (B20.1 / gcc 2.95.2) is different, because it uses the
+ unix autoconf system, and must be launched as described above for UNIX.
+ I have upgraded to the latest development of libtool to be able to build
+ DLL's with Cygwin. You can build the "-mno-cygwin" version by editing
+ the Makefile by hand and adding that option to CXXFLAGS.
+
+ Rob Bloodgood adds that the following GCC options are for maximum code
+ efficiency on x86 hardware: "-O2 -m486 -malign-loops=2 -malign-jumps=2".
+ I have not yet tried this myself, but am passing on the tip.
+
+MACINTOSH
+
+ The Mac version requires Metrowerks CodeWarrior 5. See the info above
+ in the Windows section (MWCW is multi-platform). The projects are all
+ located in the "mac/" folder, which is also where MWCW will place its own
+ "... Data" folders with intermediate results. As with all other setups,
+ final results are made to end up in the "builds/" directory.
+
+ Static 68K builds appear to work fine, the 68K CFM variants will need
+ some more work (I couldn't get the libraries to export their symbols).
+
+
+PLATFORM-SPECIFIC NOTES
+=======================
+
+* Linux RH 5.2 / gcc 2.95.2
+
+ Builds with gcc 2.95.2 work out of the box. The Tcl extension ends up as
+ ".libs/libmk4tcl.so.0.0.0" (to please libtool), and should be renamed to
+ "Mk4tcl.so". Similarly, ".libs/libMk4py.so.0.0.0" is in fact the Python
+ extension, and *must* be renamed to "Mk4py.so" to call it from Python.
+
+ The core MK libs end up as ".libs/libmk4.a" and ".libs/libmk4.so.0.0.0".
+
+* Solaris 2.6 / gcc 2.8.1
+
+ The Solaris builds are nasty for several reasons:
+
+ - I do not own such a machine, and often have to make arrangements
+ (or fight limited space on one of the machines I can telnet to).
+ - The gcc 2.8.1 optimizer appears to be buggy, I have had to turn off
+ the default "-O3" flag to prevent compiler crashes (several files).
+ This problems appears to be resolved with gcc 2.95.
+ - Locking on Solaris (especially w.r.t NFS) remains a mystery to me.
+ The Tcl and Python extensions both use locking (the core not yet).
+ See tcl/Mk4tcl.cpp around line 520, and python/PyStorage.cpp around
+ line 80 for details. It's all pretty messy, and not 100% correct.
+
+ Despite this, I'm doing my best to resolve these issues. Having a solid
+ build of the core *and* of Tcl / Python extensions is quite important.
+
+* Other Unix systems
+
+ No further notes, though many systems will build fine out of the box.
+
+* Windows
+
+ MSVC 6 builds MK as static lib and as DLL (universal config, I have not
+ yet created build versions with MFC or STL, mainly because MK can now be
+ used in all contexts regardless of how it was built). The Python and Tcl
+ extensions build as dynamic extensions (a static build is easy to add).
+
+ MWCW 5 builds MK as static lib and as DLL (interestingly enough, the DLL
+ is slightly smaller than MSVC 6 - 102 vs 108 Kb - when their runtimes are
+ linked in dynamically as well). I have not added Win builds for Tcl or
+ Python, since MSVC 6 has those already.
+
+ Cygwin B20.1, with gcc 2.95.2 ugrade, also builds MK as static lib and as
+ DLL. Both "pure" Cygwin (i.e. requiring cygwin1.dll) and mingw32 (using
+ the -mno-cygwin flag) build, but there are some hairy include issues when
+ it comes to choosing the right locking model for Tcl and Python. These
+ issues have not been resolved fully.
+
+* Macintosh
+
+ MWCW 5 builds PPC shared libs, PPC static libs, and 68K static libraries.
+
+ Building 68K CFM libraries leads to a "MetaKit 68K.shlb" which comes out
+ of the linker without errors, but the result does not seem to have any
+ export symbols defined (despite the fact that the library is over 200 K).
+ Because of that, I've been unable to build apps or Mk4tcl/Mk4py so far.
+
+ The other three configurations build, but for some reason MK's regression
+ test stops at L03 (everything up to that point looks ok, i.e. over 90%).
+
+ The Mk4tcl PPC extension appears to work (quick manual test), and so does
+ the Python extension, "Mk4py.PPC.slb". I have not yet given these two
+ a serious workout, hoping to have a basic test harness in place soon.
+
+* VMS, BeOS, ...
+
+ No news yet, please report your findings with any other platform builds.
+
+
+WHAT'S MISSING HERE
+===================
+
+ - a section on basic concepts (or maybe it doesn't belong here?)
+ - a section on getting started (C++, Python, Tcl all differ - point to
+ the respective intro pages)
+ - maybe a small sample for each of C++ / Tcl / Python, to give an idea
+ - mention TclKit, scripted docs (WiKit/Tequila?), VFS?
+ - I forgot... please tell me :)
+
+
+LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
+===============================
+
+Copyright (c) 1996-2000 Jean-Claude Wippler
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
+copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
+to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
+the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
+and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
+Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
+in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
+OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
+FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
+THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
+LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
+FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
+DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
+
+
+==============================================================================
+-- Jean-Claude Wippler <jcw@equi4.com>
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