Tutorial on how to build DMD/druntime/phobos and docs from source?

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 02/01/2013 09:33 AM, timewulf wrote:
> During my first approach, there was just one misunderstanding on my
> side: I didn't realize (I just didn't look for it.) , that the
> dmd-compiler itself is purely C-code. I thought, I need dmd for
> compiling the newer version.

Actually it's C++, it's just that the filenames all end in .c.

> On the otherhand, I'm a safety-fanatic, first building the new hut
> before razing down the old one, because I dislike tents ... ;-))

Me too, but it's readily possible to do this safely.  Actually I used to first 
build dmd and copy it to location _before_ building druntime/Phobos, so even 
missing off the DMD=../dmd/src/dmd flag I was still always using the correct dmd.

> I think this part, to make installation more easy and smoothy is one
> part, to help on this way. Everyone who heard about d and just wants to
> try-out if he can easily understand some samples, changing some
> parameters to see if they work as expected, doesn't want to put much
> time into installation before.

Have you tried installing LDC?  I consider it by far the friendliest install 
experience of all the D compilers, and if someone was going to have a go at 
reworking the install scripts for DMD, it'd be worth following this model.
http://wiki.dlang.org/Building_LDC_from_source

Personally I recommend using the -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/ldc when invoking 
cmake, as cmake does not by default provide an uninstall option, and this is the 
simplest way to ensure easy removal of what you install.