To do a complete build, just type:

   ./configure; make

The ./configure script builds Makefile from Makefile.in based on
your system and any options you select (run "./configure --help"
for a listing of the available options.)

If you wish to use the original Makefile with no configuration, you can
instead use:

   make -f Makefile.classic

On a windows box, use one of the Makefiles in the win/ subdirectory,
according to your compiler and environment.  If you have MinGW or
MinGW-w64 installed on your system (Msys or Cygwin, or as
cross-compile environment on Linux or Darwin), then consider:

   make -f win/Makefile.mingw

If you have VC++ installed on your system, then consider:

   cd win; nmake /f Makefile.msc

If you have trouble, or you want to do something fancy, just look at
Makefile.classic. There are 6 configuration options that are all well
commented. Instead of editing the Makefile.classic, consider copying
Makefile.classic to an alternative name such as "GNUMakefile",
"BSDMakefile", or "makefile" and editing the copy.


BUILDING OUTSIDE THE SOURCE TREE

An out of source build is pretty easy:

  1. Make and change to a new directory to do the builds in.
  2. Run the "configure" script from this directory.
  3. Type: "make"

For example:

  mkdir build
  cd build
  ../configure
  make

This will now keep all generates files separate from the maintained
source code.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are some notes on what is happening behind the scenes:

* The configure script (if used) examines the options given
  and runs various tests with the C compiler to create Makefile
  from the Makefile.in template as well as autoconfig.h

* The Makefile just sets up a few macros and then invokes the
  real makefile in src/main.mk.  The src/main.mk makefile is
  automatically generated by a TCL script found at src/makemake.tcl.
  Do not edit src/main.mk directly.  Update src/makemake.tcl and
  then rerun it.

* The *.h header files are automatically generated using a program
  called "makeheaders".  Source code to the makeheaders program is
  found in src/makeheaders.c.  Documentation is found in
  src/makeheaders.html.

* Most *.c source files are preprocessed using a program called
  "translate".  The sources to translate are found in src/translate.c.
  A header comment in src/translate.c explains in detail what it does.

* The src/mkindex.c program generates some C code that implements
  static lookup tables.  See the header comment in the source code
  for details on what it does.

Additional information on the build process is available from
http://www.fossil-scm.org/fossil/doc/trunk/www/makefile.wiki