__This is a draft__
----
= HOWTO build CLHEP with Visual Studio 2005 =

CLHEP is officially documented to build with VC7.1 but the switch to VC8 requires a little know-how to get the build steps right. This is because the VC8 compiler has a few features namely to prevent misuse or errorprone use of iterators, which render the CLHEP unusable.

== Prerequisites ==

To successfully compile CLHEP you will need
 * A working istallation of Visual Studio 2005
 * A CYGWIN setup including `autoconf`, `automake`, `make` and `tar` packages

== Prepare the build environment ==

To provide the CLHEP build scripts with the necessary information, insert the following line just before the `bash --login -i` line in the `Cygwin.bat` file found in the base directory of your CYGWIN installation:

  {{{call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\bin\vcvars32.bat"}}}

Create an installation directory for the CLHEP libraries. I suggest to use `C:\clhep` and the following steps will rely on this choice.

== Download CLHEP ==

 * Download the latest source package from http://proj-clhep.web.cern.ch/proj-clhep/ 
 * Move the downloaded file into your CYGWIN `var/tmp` directory usually located at `C:\cygwin\var\tmp`
 * Enter the CYGWIN environment (by double-clicking the Cygwin symbol on your desktop)

== Unpack, configure and build CLHEP ==

The following steps will build a debug and a release version of the CLHEP library.

Execute the following commands:

 * `mkdir clhep; cd clhep`
 * `tar xzf /var/tmp/clhep-*-src.tgz`
 * `cd *; cd CLHEP`
 * `mkdir debug; cd debug`
 * `../configure --prefix=/cygdrive/c/clhep/debug`
 * `make AM_CXXFLAGS="-Ehsc -nologo -GR -MDd -ZI -D_HAS_ITERATOR_DEBUGGING=0 -D_SECURE_SCL=0"`
 * `make install`
 * `cd ..; mkdir release; cd release`
 * `../configure --prefix=/cygdrive/c/clhep`
 * `make AM_CXXFLAGS="-Ehsc -nologo -GR -MD -D_HAS_ITERATOR_DEBUGGING=0 -D_SECURE_SCL=0"`
 * `make install`

If in the previous steps you have chosen an installation directory other than `C:\clhep`, please change the `--prefix=` parameters accordingly.

You now have a ready-to-rock version of CLHEP installed on your system and are ready to proceed with [wiki:InstallationForVisualStudio building Rave] and of course you can skip the step of downloading the precompiled CLHEP package.