=head1 NAME

XStow, replacement for GNU Stow

=head1 SYNOPSIS

xstow        [OPTION ...] PACKAGE

xstow-static [OPTION ...] PACKAGE

xstow-stow   [OPTION ...] PACKAGE

=head1 DESCRIPTION

XStow is a replacement of GNU Stow (B<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).

By default 3 versions of XStow will be compiled

=item B<xstow>

The default binary (dynamically linked)

=item B<xstow-static>

A static version with all enabled features except the ncurses support

=item B<xstow-stow>

A static version with few extensions, which results in a smaller binary.
All features that will blow up the binary and not required for being 
compatible to GNU Stow are disabled.

=head1 USAGE

xstow [OPTION ...] PACKAGE

Install a package

	xstow foobar

Uninstall package

	xstow -D foobar


=head1 OPTIONS

=item B<-dl -debug-level> INT

Set's the debug level. An unsigned integer is accepted. The
default value is 0.

=item B<-dm -debug-module> [ALL|ARG|MAIN|TREE|CPPDIR]

Filter messages from a specific module.


=item B<-h -help> 

Shows a help screen.

=item B<-V -Version>

Displays XStows version number and supported features.

=item B<-n -no>

Do not actually make changes

=item B<-c -conflicts>

Scan for conflicts, implies B<-n>.

=item B<-s -simulate>

Simulate installation. If this option is set permission problems will
be ignored and B<-verbose> will be set to 1.

=item B<-d -dir> DIR

Set stow dir to DIR. The default is the current directory.

=item B<-d -target> DIR

Set target to DIR. The default is the parent of the stow directory.

=item B<-v -verbose> [0|1|2|3]

Increase verboseness. Possible levels are 0,1,2 or 3. Simple setting
B<-v> or B<-verbose> adds 1.

=item B<-D -delete>

Unstow instead of stow. Deinstall the package.

=item B<-R -restow>

The same like B<-delete> followed by an reinstall.

=item B<-ap -absolute-path>

Create symlinks with absolute path names. XStow can always handle
packages which were installed with this option. Installing one package
with absolute path names and one without is no problem. Only the
creation of the symlinks will be affected by this option. This will
cause that if one package is installed with this option and one
without, some of the symlinks of the first package, when they have to
be recreated will be recreated as relative ones. It is not good idea
doing this, even XStow does not have any problems with it.
I<Warning:> Breaks compatibility with Stow!

=item B<-tr -traversable> LINKS

A list of links pointing to directories, that can be ignored.
eg.: /usr/local/man is a link to /usr/local/share/man
I<Warning:> Breaks compatibility with Stow!

=item B<-tkt -tr-keep-targets>

Add the list of traversable links also to the keep targets list. This
prevents the targets of the links from beeing removed by XStow, which
would cause that the traversable link becomes a dead link.

=item B<-tre -tr-auto> PATTERN

Automatically add links which target matches this pattern.

=item B<-tre -tr-auto-regex> REGEX

Automatically add links which target matches this pattern.

=item B<kd -keep-dirs> DIR

A list of directories, that should not be removed when a package will be
removed. I<Warning:> Breaks compatibility with Stow!

=item B<-i -ignore> PATTERN

Ignore files that matches this pattern.

=item B<-ire -ignore-regex> REGEX

Ignore files that matches this expression.

=item B<-ni -nignore> PATTERN

Ignore everything except file and directories matching this
expression. eg: "systree/bintree systree/headertree".
For using nignore support fnmatch and configration file
support has to be enabled. For more details see xstow.ini(5).

=item B<-cp -copy> PATTERN

Copy files or directories that matching this pattern.

=item B<-cre -copy-regex> REGEX

Copy files or directories that matching this expression.

=item B<-sd -stow-dirs> DIR

A list of other stow dirs, that xstow is allowed change

=item B<-sda -sd-auto> PATTERN

Automatically add directories to the list when matching this
expression.

=item B<-sde -sd-auto-regex> REGEX

Automatically add directories to the list when matching this
expression.

=item B<-pd -protect-dirs> DIR

A list of other dirs, that xstow is not allowed change

=item B<-pda -pd-auto> PATTERN

Automatically add directories to the list when matching this
expression.

=item B<-pde -pd-auto-regex> REGEX

Automatically add directories to the list when matching this
expression.

=item B<-pdt -pd-targets> DIRS

A list of dirs, xstow is allowed to change.

=item B<-pta -pdt-add-traversable> DIRS

Automatically add the targets of traversable links to the targets list.

=item B<-f -force>

Skip conflicts if possible.

=item B<-C -no-curses>

Do not detect the terminal width by using curses.
There is more description at the environment variable section.

=item B<-F file>

Read this configuration file too.

=head1 RETURN VALUES

=item B<0>

On success. 

=item B<1>

On a missspelled call of stow. 

=item B<2>

If an internal error occours. This does not include if stowing a
package fails. If a package cannot be installed 0 is returned.

=item B<3>

Installing the package failed of some reason.


=head1 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

Since the debugging of the command line parsing can be hard if the
debugging level is set by the command line there are two evironment
variables:

=item B<XSTOW_DEBUG_LEVEL>

Same as the B<-debug-level> option.

=item B<XSTOW_DEBUG_MODULE>

Same as the B<-debug-module> option.

Both values will be overwritten by the settings of the command line,
after the command line was parsed.

=item B<XSTOW_USE_CURSES> 

Same as the B<-no-curses> option.

In later versions xstow tried detecting the terminal width and height,
by default at the startup routine. Even if this value is only used by
the help screen. The result was:

    $ TERM="" xstow 
    Error opening terminal: unknown.

The error message is reported by the ncurses lib. This can cause problems
if you wan't start xstow as a cron job.
Now xstow tries detecting the terminal width not in it's startup, but
when the help screen is printed out. As an extra option you can set
the environment variable B<XSTOW_USE_CURSES>="0" this will tell xstow
not using curses anyway.

=head1 COFIGURATION FILES

The configuration file xstow.ini can be located in /etc and/or in the 
current stow directory. For possible settings and syntax 
of this file see xstow.ini(5)

In this manpage there are some detailed informations of some special
settings of XStow too. Please read it!

=head1 EXAMPLES

=head2 Common Usage

As an example we install the ixlib library into the /usr/local/ tree. 

	tar xvfz ixlib-0.96.2.tar.gz
	cd ixlib-0.96.2
	./configure
	make

So far, this was business as usual. 

I<Note:> by default the configure script prepares the application for
beeing installed into /usr/local/. Have a look at configure --help for
more info. 

Now installation is done by not installing ixlib directly into
/usr/local/, we install it into /usr/local/stow/ixlib-0.96.2/.

	make install prefix=/usr/local/stow/ixlib-0.96.2/

The last point is creating all necessare symlinks so that ixlib's
include files can be found by the compiler in
/usr/local/include. Therefore we are using xstow.

	cd /usr/local/stow
	xstow ixlib-0.96.2

And all symlinks will be created.

=head2 Installing XStow by using XStow

After calling the configure script and make, XStow is installed into
the stow directory as I showed it in the upper example.

	make install prefix=/usr/local/stow/xstow-0.1.0

Then you switch to the stow directory and call XStow

	cd /usr/local/stow
	xstow-0.1.0/bin/xstow xstow-0.1.0

That is it.

=head1 COMPATIBLE

=head2 Link Creation

By default XStow is fully Stow compatible. The usage of some of the
advanced features can cause that Stow cannot handle the tree any
more.

=head2 Command Line Options

XStow supports all command line options of Stow. Even it's
format. 

Eg.:
	xstow --verbose=2 foobar


=head1 BUGS

There are some nitty gritty cases, but no known bugs.

=head1 WHY

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

=head1 AUTHORS

XStow was written by Martin Oberzalek <kingleo@gmx.at>.

=head1 COPYING

XStow a replacement of GNU Stow written in C++.	

Copyright (C) 2002-2003 by Martin Oberzalek <kingleo@gmx.at>

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.

=head1 SEE ALSO

xstow.ini(5) stow(1)

GNU Stow has an excelent documentation. Have a look at the manual.
http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/