stow/dot-local/share/info/stow.info

This is stow.info, produced by makeinfo version 7.1 from stow.texi.

This manual describes GNU Stow version 2.3.2-fixbug56727 (2 November
2023), a program for managing farms of symbolic links.

   Software and documentation is copyrighted by the following:

   © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 Bob Glickstein <bobg+stow@zanshin.com>
© 2000, 2001 Guillaume Morin <gmorin@gnu.org>
© 2007 Kahlil (Kal) Hodgson <kahlil@internode.on.net>
© 2011 Adam Spiers <stow@adamspiers.org>

     Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
     this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission
     notice are preserved on all copies.

     Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
     this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided
     also that the section entitled "GNU General Public License" is
     included with the modified manual, and provided that the entire
     resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
     permission notice identical to this one.

     Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
     manual into another language, under the above conditions for
     modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated
     in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.
INFO-DIR-SECTION System administration
START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY
* Stow: (stow).           GNU Stow.
END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY


File: stow.info,  Node: Top,  Next: Introduction,  Up: (dir)

Stow
****

This manual describes GNU Stow 2.3.2-fixbug56727 (2 November 2023), a
symlink farm manager which takes distinct sets of software and/or data
located in separate directories on the filesystem, and makes them appear
to be installed in a single directory tree.

* Menu:

* Introduction::                Description of Stow.
* Terminology::                 Terms used by this manual.
* Invoking Stow::               Option summary.
* Ignore Lists::                Controlling what gets stowed.
* Installing Packages::         Using Stow to install.
* Deleting Packages::           Using Stow to uninstall.
* Conflicts::                   When Stow can't stow.
* Mixing Operations::           Multiple actions per invocation.
* Multiple Stow Directories::   Further segregating software.
* Target Maintenance::          Cleaning up mistakes.
* Resource Files::              Setting default command line options.
* Compile-time vs Install-time::  Faking out 'make install'.
* Bootstrapping::               When stow and perl are not yet stowed.
* Reporting Bugs::              How, what, where, and when to report.
* Known Bugs::                  Don't report any of these.
* GNU General Public License::  Copying terms.
* Index::                       Index of concepts.

 -- The Detailed Node Listing --

Ignore Lists

* Motivation For Ignore Lists::
* Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists::
* Justification For Yet Another Set Of Ignore Files::

Advice on changing compilation and installation parameters

* GNU Emacs::
* Other FSF Software::
* Cygnus Software::
* Perl and Perl 5 Modules::



File: stow.info,  Node: Introduction,  Next: Terminology,  Prev: Top,  Up: Top

1 Introduction
**************

GNU Stow is a symlink farm manager which takes distinct sets of software
and/or data located in separate directories on the filesystem, and makes
them all appear to be installed in a single directory tree.

   Originally Stow was born to address the need to administer, upgrade,
install, and remove files in independent software packages without
confusing them with other files sharing the same file system space.  For
instance, many years ago it used to be common to compile programs such
as Perl and Emacs from source and install them in ‘/usr/local’.  When
one does so, one winds up with the following files(1) in
‘/usr/local/man/man1’:

     a2p.1
     ctags.1
     emacs.1
     etags.1
     h2ph.1
     perl.1
     s2p.1

Now suppose it's time to uninstall Perl.  Which man pages get removed?
Obviously ‘perl.1’ is one of them, but it should not be the
administrator's responsibility to memorize the ownership of individual
files by separate packages.

   The approach used by Stow is to install each package into its own
tree, then use symbolic links to make it appear as though the files are
installed in the common tree.  Administration can be performed in the
package's private tree in isolation from clutter from other packages.
Stow can then be used to update the symbolic links.  The structure of
each private tree should reflect the desired structure in the common
tree; i.e.  (in the typical case) there should be a ‘bin’ directory
containing executables, a ‘man/man1’ directory containing section 1 man
pages, and so on.

   While this is useful for keeping track of system-wide and per-user
installations of software built from source, in more recent times
software packages are often managed by more sophisticated package
management software such as ‘rpm’
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rpm_(software)), ‘dpkg’
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dpkg), and Nix
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_package_manager) / GNU Guix
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Guix), or language-native package
managers such as Ruby's ‘gem’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RubyGems),
Python's ‘pip’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pip_(package_manager)),
Javascript's ‘npm’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Npm_(software)), and
so on.

   However Stow is still used not only for software package management,
but also for other purposes, such as facilitating a more controlled
approach to management of configuration files in the user's home
directory(2), especially when coupled with version control systems(3).

   Stow was inspired by Carnegie Mellon's Depot program, but is
substantially simpler and safer.  Whereas Depot required database files
to keep things in sync, Stow stores no extra state between runs, so
there's no danger (as there was in Depot) of mangling directories when
file hierarchies don't match the database.  Also unlike Depot, Stow will
never delete any files, directories, or links that appear in a Stow
directory (e.g., ‘/usr/local/stow/emacs’), so it's always possible to
rebuild the target tree (e.g., ‘/usr/local’).

   Stow is implemented as a combination of a Perl script providing a CLI
interface, and a backend Perl module which does most of the work.

   For information about the latest version of Stow, you can refer to
<http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/>.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) As of Perl 4.036 and Emacs 19.22.  These are now ancient releases
but the example still holds valid.

   (2) 
<http://brandon.invergo.net/news/2012-05-26-using-gnu-stow-to-manage-your-dotfiles.html>

   (3) 
<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-stow/2011-12/msg00000.html>


File: stow.info,  Node: Terminology,  Next: Invoking Stow,  Prev: Introduction,  Up: Top

2 Terminology
*************

   A “package” is a related collection of files and directories that you
wish to administer as a unit -- e.g., Perl or Emacs -- and that needs to
be installed in a particular directory structure -- e.g., with ‘bin’,
‘lib’, and ‘man’ subdirectories.

   A “target directory” is the root of a tree in which one or more
packages wish to _appear_ to be installed.  A common, but by no means
the only such location is ‘/usr/local’.  The examples in this manual
will use ‘/usr/local’ as the target directory.

   A “stow directory” is the root of a tree containing separate packages
in private subtrees.  When Stow runs, it uses the current directory as
the default stow directory.  The examples in this manual will use
‘/usr/local/stow’ as the stow directory, so that individual packages
will be, for example, ‘/usr/local/stow/perl’ and
‘/usr/local/stow/emacs’.

   An “installation image” is the layout of files and directories
required by a package, relative to the target directory.  Thus, the
installation image for Perl includes: a ‘bin’ directory containing
‘perl’ and ‘a2p’ (among others); an ‘info’ directory containing Texinfo
documentation; a ‘lib/perl’ directory containing Perl libraries; and a
‘man/man1’ directory containing man pages.

   A “package directory” is the root of a tree containing the
installation image for a particular package.  Each package directory
must reside in a stow directory -- e.g., the package directory
‘/usr/local/stow/perl’ must reside in the stow directory
‘/usr/local/stow’.  The “name” of a package is the name of its directory
within the stow directory -- e.g., ‘perl’.

   Thus, the Perl executable might reside in
‘/usr/local/stow/perl/bin/perl’, where ‘/usr/local’ is the target
directory, ‘/usr/local/stow’ is the stow directory,
‘/usr/local/stow/perl’ is the package directory, and ‘bin/perl’ within
is part of the installation image.

   A “symlink” is a symbolic link.  A symlink can be “relative” or
“absolute”.  An absolute symlink names a full path; that is, one
starting from ‘/’.  A relative symlink names a relative path; that is,
one not starting from ‘/’.  The target of a relative symlink is computed
starting from the symlink's own directory.  Stow only creates relative
symlinks.


File: stow.info,  Node: Invoking Stow,  Next: Ignore Lists,  Prev: Terminology,  Up: Top

3 Invoking Stow
***************

The syntax of the ‘stow’ command is:

     stow [OPTIONS] [ACTION FLAG] PACKAGE ...

Each PACKAGE is the name of a package (e.g., ‘perl’) in the stow
directory that we wish to install into (or delete from) the target
directory.  The default action is to install the given packages,
although alternate actions may be specified by preceding the package
name(s) with an ACTION FLAG.

The following options are supported:

‘-d DIR’
‘--dir=DIR’
     Set the stow directory to DIR.  Defaults to the value of the
     environment variable ‘STOW_DIR’ if set, or the current directory
     otherwise.

‘-t DIR’
‘--target=DIR’
     Set the target directory to DIR instead of the parent of the stow
     directory.  Defaults to the parent of the stow directory, so it is
     typical to execute ‘stow’ from the directory ‘/usr/local/stow’.

‘--ignore=REGEXP’
     This (repeatable) option lets you suppress acting on files that
     match the given Perl regular expression.  For example, using the
     options

          --ignore='.*\.orig' --ignore='.*\.dist'

     will cause stow to ignore files ending in ‘.orig’ or ‘.dist’.

     Note that the regular expression is anchored to the end of the
     filename, because this is what you will want to do most of the
     time.

     Also note that by default Stow automatically ignores a "sensible"
     built-in list of files and directories such as ‘CVS’, editor backup
     files, and so on.  *Note Ignore Lists::, for more details.

‘--defer=REGEXP’
     This (repeatable) option avoids stowing a file matching the given
     regular expression, if that file is already stowed by another
     package.  This is effectively the opposite of ‘--override’.

     (N.B. the name ‘--defer’ was chosen in the sense that the package
     currently being stowed is treated with lower precedence than any
     already installed package, not in the sense that the operation is
     being postponed to be run at a later point in time; do not confuse
     this nomenclature with the wording used in *note Deferred
     Operation::.)

     For example, the following options

          --defer=man --defer=info

     will cause stow to skip over pre-existing man and info pages.

     Equivalently, you could use ‘--defer='man|info'’ since the argument
     is just a Perl regular expression.

     Note that the regular expression is anchored to the beginning of
     the path relative to the target directory, because this is what you
     will want to do most of the time.

‘--override=REGEXP’
     This (repeatable) option forces any file matching the regular
     expression to be stowed, even if the file is already stowed to
     another package.  For example, the following options

          --override=man --override=info

     will permit stow to overwrite links that point to pre-existing man
     and info pages that are owned by stow and would otherwise cause a
     conflict.

     The regular expression is anchored to the beginning of the path
     relative to the target directory, because this is what you will
     want to do most of the time.

‘--dotfiles’

     Enable special handling for _dotfiles_ (files or folders whose name
     begins with a period) in the package directory.  If this option is
     enabled, Stow will add a preprocessing step for each file or folder
     whose name begins with ‘dot-’, and replace the ‘dot-’ prefix in the
     name by a period ‘.’.  This is useful when Stow is used to manage
     collections of dotfiles, to avoid having a package directory full
     of hidden files.

     For example, suppose we have a package containing two files,
     ‘stow/dot-bashrc’ and ‘stow/dot-emacs.d/init.el’.  With this
     option, Stow will create symlinks from ‘.bashrc’ to
     ‘stow/dot-bashrc’ and from ‘.emacs.d/init.el’ to
     ‘stow/dot-emacs.d/init.el’.  Any other files, whose name does not
     begin with ‘dot-’, will be processed as usual.

‘--no-folding’

     This disables any further tree folding (*note tree folding::) or
     refolding (*note tree refolding::).  If a new subdirectory is
     encountered whilst stowing a new package, the subdirectory is
     created within the target, and its contents are symlinked, rather
     than just creating a symlink for the directory.  If removal of
     symlinks whilst unstowing a package causes a subtree to be foldable
     (i.e.  only containing symlinks to a single package), that subtree
     will not be removed and replaced with a symlink.

‘--adopt’
     *Warning!*  This behaviour is specifically intended to alter the
     contents of your stow directory.  If you do not want that, this
     option is not for you.

     When stowing, if a target is encountered which already exists but
     is a plain file (and hence not owned by any existing stow package),
     then normally Stow will register this as a conflict and refuse to
     proceed.  This option changes that behaviour so that the file is
     moved to the same relative place within the package's installation
     image within the stow directory, and then stowing proceeds as
     before.  So effectively, the file becomes adopted by the stow
     package, without its contents changing.

     This is particularly useful when the stow package is under the
     control of a version control system, because it allows files in the
     target tree, with potentially different contents to the equivalent
     versions in the stow package's installation image, to be adopted
     into the package, then compared by running something like ‘git diff
     ...’ inside the stow package, and finally either kept (e.g.  via
     ‘git commit ...’) or discarded (‘git checkout HEAD ...’).

‘-n’
‘--no’
‘--simulate’
     Do not perform any operations that modify the file system; in
     combination with ‘-v’ can be used to merely show what would happen.

‘-v’
‘--verbose[=N]’
     Send verbose output to standard error describing what Stow is
     doing.  Verbosity levels are from 0 to 5; 0 is the default.  Using
     ‘-v’ or ‘--verbose’ increases the verbosity by one; using
     ‘--verbose=N’ sets it to N.

‘-p’
‘--compat’
     Scan the whole target tree when unstowing.  By default, only
     directories specified in the “installation image” are scanned
     during an unstow operation.  Scanning the whole tree can be
     prohibitive if your target tree is very large.  This option
     restores the legacy behaviour; however, the ‘--badlinks’ option to
     the ‘chkstow’ utility may be a better way of ensuring that your
     installation does not have any dangling symlinks (*note Target
     Maintenance::).

‘-V’
‘--version’
     Show Stow version number, and exit.

‘-h’
‘--help’
     Show Stow command syntax, and exit.

   The following ACTION FLAGS are supported:

‘-D’
‘--delete’
     Delete (unstow) the package name(s) that follow this option from
     the “target directory”.  This option may be repeated any number of
     times.

‘-R’
‘--restow’
     Restow (first unstow, then stow again) the package names that
     follow this option.  This is useful for pruning obsolete symlinks
     from the target tree after updating the software in a package.
     This option may be repeated any number of times.

‘-S’
‘--stow’
     explictly stow the package name(s) that follow this option.  May be
     omitted if you are not using the ‘-D’ or ‘-R’ options in the same
     invocation.  *Note Mixing Operations::, for details of when you
     might like to use this feature.  This option may be repeated any
     number of times.


File: stow.info,  Node: Ignore Lists,  Next: Installing Packages,  Prev: Invoking Stow,  Up: Top

4 Ignore Lists
**************

* Menu:

* Motivation For Ignore Lists::
* Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists::
* Justification For Yet Another Set Of Ignore Files::


File: stow.info,  Node: Motivation For Ignore Lists,  Next: Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists,  Prev: Ignore Lists,  Up: Ignore Lists

4.1 Motivation For Ignore Lists
===============================

In many situations, there will exist files under the package directories
which it would be undesirable to stow into the target directory.  For
example, files related version control such as ‘.gitignore’, ‘CVS’,
‘*,v’ (RCS files) should typically not have symlinks from the target
tree pointing to them.  Also there may be files or directories relating
to the build of the package which are not needed at run-time.

   In these cases, it can be rather cumbersome to specify a ‘--ignore’
parameter for each file or directory to be ignored.  This could be
worked around by ensuring the existence of ‘~/.stowrc’ containing
multiple ‘--ignore’ lines, or if a different set of files/directories
should be ignored depending on which stow package is involved, a
‘.stowrc’ file for each stow package, but this would require the user to
ensure that they were in the correct directory before invoking stow,
which would be tedious and error-prone.  Furthermore, since Stow shifts
parameters from ‘.stowrc’ onto ARGV at run-time, it could clutter up the
process table with excessively long parameter lists, or even worse,
exceed the operating system's limit for process arguments.

   Therefore in addition to ‘--ignore’ parameters, Stow provides a way
to specify lists of files and directories to ignore.


File: stow.info,  Node: Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists,  Next: Justification For Yet Another Set Of Ignore Files,  Prev: Motivation For Ignore Lists,  Up: Ignore Lists

4.2 Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists
====================================

If you put Perl regular expressions, one per line, in a
‘.stow-local-ignore’ file within any top level package directory, in
which case any file or directory within that package matching any of
these regular expressions will be ignored.  In the absence of this
package-specific ignore list, Stow will instead use the contents of
‘~/.stow-global-ignore’, if it exists.  If neither the package-local or
global ignore list exist, Stow will use its own built-in default ignore
list, which serves as a useful example of the format of these ignore
list files:

     # Comments and blank lines are allowed.
     
     RCS
     .+,v
     
     CVS
     \.\#.+       # CVS conflict files / emacs lock files
     \.cvsignore
     
     \.svn
     _darcs
     \.hg
     
     \.git
     \.gitignore
     
     .+~          # emacs backup files
     \#.*\#       # emacs autosave files
     
     ^/README.*
     ^/LICENSE.*
     ^/COPYING

   Stow first iterates through the chosen ignore list (built-in, global,
or package-local) as per above, stripping out comments (if you want to
include the ‘#’ symbol in a regular expression, escape it with a
blackslash) and blank lines, placing each regular expressions into one
of two sets depending on whether it contains the ‘/’ forward slash
symbol.

   Then in order to determine whether a file or directory should be
ignored:

  1. Stow calculates its path relative to the top-level package
     directory, prefixing that with ‘/’.  If any of the regular
     expressions containing a ‘/’ _exactly_(1) match a subpath(2) of
     this relative path, then the file or directory will be ignored.

  2. If none of the regular expressions containing a ‘/’ match in the
     manner described above, Stow checks whether the _basename_(3) of
     the file or directory matches _exactly_ against the remaining
     regular expressions which do not contain a ‘/’, and if so, ignores
     the file or directory.

  3. Otherwise, the file or directory is not ignored.

   For example, if a file ‘bazqux’ is in the ‘foo/bar’ subdirectory of
the package directory, Stow would use ‘/foo/bar/bazqux’ as the text for
matching against regular expressions which contain ‘/’, and ‘bazqux’ as
the text for matching against regular expressions which don't contain
‘/’.  Then regular expressions ‘bazqux’, ‘baz.*’, ‘.*qux’, ‘bar/.*x’,
and ‘^/foo/.*qux’ would all match (causing the file to be ignored),
whereas ‘bar’, ‘baz’, ‘qux’, and ‘o/bar/b’ would not (although ‘bar’
would cause its parent directory to be ignored and prevent Stow from
recursing into that anyway, in which case the file ‘bazqux’ would not
even be considered for stowing).

   As a special exception to the above algorithm, any
‘.stow-local-ignore’ present in the top-level package directory is
_always_ ignored, regardless of the contents of any ignore list, because
this file serves no purpose outside the stow directory.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Exact matching means the regular expression is anchored at the
beginning and end, in contrast to unanchored regular expressions which
will match a substring.

   (2) In this context, "subpath" means a contiguous subset of path
segments; e.g for the relative path ‘one/two/three’, there are six valid
subpaths: ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’, ‘one/two’, ‘two/three’,
‘one/two/three’.

   (3) The "basename" is the name of the file or directory itself,
excluding any directory path prefix - as returned by the ‘basename’
command.


File: stow.info,  Node: Justification For Yet Another Set Of Ignore Files,  Prev: Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists,  Up: Ignore Lists

4.3 Justification For Yet Another Set Of Ignore Files
=====================================================

The reader may note that this format is very similar to existing ignore
list file formats, such as those for ‘cvs’, ‘git’, ‘rsync’ etc., and
wonder if another set of ignore lists is justified.  However there are
good reasons why Stow does not simply check for the presence of say,
‘.cvsignore’, and use that if it exists.  Firstly, there is no guarantee
that a stow package would contain any version control meta-data, or
permit introducing this if it didn't already exist.

   Secondly even if it did, version control system ignore lists
generally reflect _build-time_ ignores rather than _install-time_, and
there may be some intermediate or temporary files on those ignore lists
generated during development or at build-time which it would be
inappropriate to stow, even though many files generated at build-time
(binaries, libraries, documentation etc.)  certainly do need to be
stowed.  Similarly, if a file is _not_ in the version control system's
ignore list, there is no way of knowing whether the file is intended for
end use, let alone whether the version control system is tracking it or
not.

   Therefore it seems clear that ignore lists provided by version
control systems do not provide sufficient information for Stow to
determine which files and directories to stow, and so it makes sense for
Stow to support independent ignore lists.


File: stow.info,  Node: Installing Packages,  Next: Deleting Packages,  Prev: Ignore Lists,  Up: Top

5 Installing Packages
*********************

The default action of Stow is to install a package.  This means creating
symlinks in the target tree that point into the package tree.  Stow
attempts to do this with as few symlinks as possible; in other words, if
Stow can create a single symlink that points to an entire subtree within
the package tree, it will choose to do that rather than create a
directory in the target tree and populate it with symlinks.

5.1 Tree folding
================

For example, suppose that no packages have yet been installed in
‘/usr/local’; it's completely empty (except for the ‘stow’ subdirectory,
of course).  Now suppose the Perl package is installed.  Recall that it
includes the following directories in its installation image: ‘bin’;
‘info’; ‘lib/perl’; ‘man/man1’.  Rather than creating the directory
‘/usr/local/bin’ and populating it with symlinks to
‘../stow/perl/bin/perl’ and ‘../stow/perl/bin/a2p’ (and so on), Stow
will create a single symlink, ‘/usr/local/bin’, which points to
‘stow/perl/bin’.  In this way, it still works to refer to
‘/usr/local/bin/perl’ and ‘/usr/local/bin/a2p’, and fewer symlinks have
been created.  This is called “tree folding”, since an entire subtree is
"folded" into a single symlink.

   To complete this example, Stow will also create the symlink
‘/usr/local/info’ pointing to ‘stow/perl/info’; the symlink
‘/usr/local/lib’ pointing to ‘stow/perl/lib’; and the symlink
‘/usr/local/man’ pointing to ‘stow/perl/man’.

   Now suppose that instead of installing the Perl package into an empty
target tree, the target tree is not empty to begin with.  Instead, it
contains several files and directories installed under a different
system-administration philosophy.  In particular, ‘/usr/local/bin’
already exists and is a directory, as are ‘/usr/local/lib’ and
‘/usr/local/man/man1’.  In this case, Stow will descend into
‘/usr/local/bin’ and create symlinks to ‘../stow/perl/bin/perl’ and
‘../stow/perl/bin/a2p’ (etc.), and it will descend into ‘/usr/local/lib’
and create the tree-folding symlink ‘perl’ pointing to
‘../stow/perl/lib/perl’, and so on.  As a rule, Stow only descends as
far as necessary into the target tree when it can create a tree-folding
symlink.  However, this behaviour can be changed via the ‘--no-folding’
option; *note Invoking Stow::.

5.2 Tree unfolding
==================

The time often comes when a tree-folding symlink has to be undone
because another package uses one or more of the folded subdirectories in
its installation image.  This operation is called “splitting open” or
“unfolding” a folded tree.  It involves removing the original symlink
from the target tree, creating a true directory in its place, and then
populating the new directory with symlinks to the newly-installed
package _and_ to the old package that used the old symlink.  For
example, suppose that after installing Perl into an empty ‘/usr/local’,
we wish to install Emacs.  Emacs's installation image includes a ‘bin’
directory containing the ‘emacs’ and ‘etags’ executables, among others.
Stow must make these files appear to be installed in ‘/usr/local/bin’,
but presently ‘/usr/local/bin’ is a symlink to ‘stow/perl/bin’.  Stow
therefore takes the following steps: the symlink ‘/usr/local/bin’ is
deleted; the directory ‘/usr/local/bin’ is created; links are made from
‘/usr/local/bin’ to ‘../stow/emacs/bin/emacs’ and
‘../stow/emacs/bin/etags’; and links are made from ‘/usr/local/bin’ to
‘../stow/perl/bin/perl’ and ‘../stow/perl/bin/a2p’.

5.3 Ownership
=============

When splitting open a folded tree, Stow makes sure that the symlink it
is about to remove points inside a valid package in the current stow
directory.  _Stow will never delete anything that it doesn't own_.  Stow
"owns" everything living in the target tree that points into a package
in the stow directory.  Anything Stow owns, it can recompute if lost:
symlinks that point into a package in the stow directory, or directories
that only contain symlinks that stow "owns".  Note that by this
definition, Stow doesn't "own" anything _in_ the stow directory or in
any of the packages.

5.4 Conflicts during installation
=================================

If Stow needs to create a directory or a symlink in the target tree and
it cannot because that name is already in use and is not owned by Stow,
then a “conflict” has arisen.  *Note Conflicts::.


File: stow.info,  Node: Deleting Packages,  Next: Conflicts,  Prev: Installing Packages,  Up: Top

6 Deleting Packages
*******************

When the ‘-D’ option is given, the action of Stow is to delete a package
from the target tree.  Note that Stow will not delete anything it
doesn't "own".  Deleting a package does _not_ mean removing it from the
stow directory or discarding the package tree.

   To delete a package, Stow recursively scans the target tree, skipping
over any directory that is not included in the installation image.(1)
For example, if the target directory is ‘/usr/local’ and the
installation image for the package being deleted has only a ‘bin’
directory and a ‘man’ directory at the top level, then we only scan
‘/usr/local/bin’ and ‘/usr/local/man’, and not ‘/usr/local/lib’ or
‘/usr/local/share’, or for that matter ‘/usr/local/stow’.  Any symlink
it finds that points into the package being deleted is removed.  Any
directory that contained only symlinks to the package being deleted is
removed.

6.1 Refolding "foldable" trees.
===============================

After removing symlinks and empty subdirectories, any directory that
contains only symlinks to a single other package is considered to be a
previously "folded" tree that was "split open."  Stow will refold the
tree by removing the symlinks to the surviving package, removing the
directory, then linking the directory back to the surviving package.
However, this behaviour can be prevented via the ‘--no-folding’ option;
*note Invoking Stow::.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) This approach was introduced in version 2 of GNU Stow.
Previously, the whole target tree was scanned and stow directories were
explicitly omitted.  This became problematic when dealing with very
large installations.  The only situation where this is useful is if you
accidentally delete a directory in the package tree, leaving you with a
whole bunch of dangling links.  Note that you can enable the old
approach with the ‘-p’ option.  Alternatively, you can use the
‘--badlinks’ option get stow to search for dangling links in your target
tree and remove the offenders manually.


File: stow.info,  Node: Conflicts,  Next: Mixing Operations,  Prev: Deleting Packages,  Up: Top

7 Conflicts
***********

If, during installation, a file or symlink exists in the target tree and
has the same name as something Stow needs to create, and if the existing
name is not a folded tree that can be split open, then a “conflict” has
arisen.  A conflict also occurs if a directory exists where Stow needs
to place a symlink to a non-directory.  On the other hand, if the
existing name is merely a symlink that already points where Stow needs
it to, then no conflict has occurred.  (Thus it is harmless to install a
package that has already been installed.)

   For complex packages, scanning the stow and target trees in tandem,
and deciding whether to make directories or links, split-open or fold
directories, can actually take a long time (a number of seconds).
Moreover, an accurate analysis of potential conflicts requires us to
take into account all of these operations.

7.1 Deferred Operation
======================

Since version 2.0, Stow now adopts a two-phase algorithm, first scanning
for any potential conflicts before any stowing or unstowing operations
are performed.  If any conflicts are found, they are displayed and then
Stow terminates without making any modifications to the filesystem.
This means that there is much less risk of a package being partially
stowed or unstowed due to conflicts.

   Prior to version 2.0, if a conflict was discovered, the stow or
unstow operation could be aborted mid-flow, leaving the target tree in
an inconsistent state.


File: stow.info,  Node: Mixing Operations,  Next: Multiple Stow Directories,  Prev: Conflicts,  Up: Top

8 Mixing Operations
*******************

Since version 2.0, multiple distinct actions can be specified in a
single invocation of GNU Stow.  For example, to update an installation
of Emacs from version 21.3 to 21.4a you can now do the following:

     stow -D emacs-21.3 -S emacs-21.4a

which will replace emacs-21.3 with emacs-21.4a using a single
invocation.

   This is much faster and cleaner than performing two separate
invocations of stow, because redundant folding/unfolding operations can
be factored out.  In addition, all the operations are calculated and
merged before being executed (*note Deferred Operation::), so the amount
of of time in which GNU Emacs is unavailable is minimised.

   You can mix and match any number of actions, for example,

     stow -S pkg1 pkg2 -D pkg3 pkg4 -S pkg5 -R pkg6

will unstow pkg3, pkg4 and pkg6, then stow pkg1, pkg2, pkg5 and pkg6.


File: stow.info,  Node: Multiple Stow Directories,  Next: Target Maintenance,  Prev: Mixing Operations,  Up: Top

9 Multiple Stow Directories
***************************

If there are two or more system administrators who wish to maintain
software separately, or if there is any other reason to want two or more
stow directories, it can be done by creating a file named ‘.stow’ in
each stow directory.  The presence of ‘/usr/local/foo/.stow’ informs
Stow that, though ‘foo’ is not the current stow directory, even if it is
a subdirectory of the target directory, nevertheless it is _a_ stow
directory and as such Stow doesn't "own" anything in it (*note
Installing Packages::).  This will protect the contents of ‘foo’ from a
‘stow -D’, for instance.

   When multiple stow directories share a target tree, if a tree-folding
symlink is encountered and needs to be split open during an
installation, as long as the top-level stow directory into which the
existing symlink points contains ‘.stow’, Stow knows how to split open
the tree in the correct manner.


File: stow.info,  Node: Target Maintenance,  Next: Resource Files,  Prev: Multiple Stow Directories,  Up: Top

10 Target Maintenance
*********************

From time to time you will need to clean up your target tree.  Since
version 2, Stow provides a new utility ‘chkstow’ to help with this.  It
includes three operational modes which performs checks that would
generally be too expensive to be performed during normal stow execution.

   The syntax of the ‘chkstow’ command is:

     chkstow [OPTIONS]

The following options are supported:

‘-t DIR’
‘--target=DIR’
     Set the target directory to DIR instead of the parent of the stow
     directory.  Defaults to the parent of the stow directory, so it is
     typical to execute ‘stow’ from the directory ‘/usr/local/stow’.

‘-b’
‘--badlinks’
     Checks target directory for bogus symbolic links.  That is, links
     that point to non-existent files.

‘-a’
‘--aliens’
     Checks for files in the target directory that are not symbolic
     links.  The target directory should be managed by stow alone,
     except for directories that contain a ‘.stow’ file.

‘-l’
‘--list’
     Will display the target package for every symbolic link in the stow
     target directory.


File: stow.info,  Node: Resource Files,  Next: Compile-time vs Install-time,  Prev: Target Maintenance,  Up: Top

11 Resource Files
*****************

Default command line options may be set in ‘.stowrc’ (current directory)
or ‘~/.stowrc’ (home directory).  These are parsed in that order, and
are appended together if they both exist.  The effect of the options in
the resource file is similar to simply prepending the options to the
command line.  This feature can be used for some interesting effects.

   For example, suppose your site uses more than one stow directory,
perhaps in order to share around responsibilities with a number of
systems administrators.  One of the administrators might have the
following in their ‘~/.stowrc’ file:

     --dir=/usr/local/stow2
     --target=/usr/local
     --ignore='~'
     --ignore='^CVS'

   so that the ‘stow’ command will default to operating on the
‘/usr/local/stow2’ directory, with ‘/usr/local’ as the target, and
ignoring vi backup files and CVS directories.

   If you had a stow directory ‘/usr/local/stow/perl-extras’ that was
only used for Perl modules, then you might place the following in
‘/usr/local/stow/perl-extras/.stowrc’:

     --dir=/usr/local/stow/perl-extras
     --target=/usr/local
     --override=bin
     --override=man
     --ignore='perllocal\.pod'
     --ignore='\.packlist'
     --ignore='\.bs'

   so that when you are in the ‘/usr/local/stow/perl-extras’ directory,
‘stow’ will regard any subdirectories as stow packages, with
‘/usr/local’ as the target (rather than the immediate parent directory
‘/usr/local/stow’), overriding any pre-existing links to bin files or
man pages, and ignoring some cruft that gets installed by default.

   If an option is provided both on the command line and in a resource
file, the command line option takes precedence.  For options that
provide a single value, such as ‘--target’ or ‘--dir’, the command line
option will overwrite any options in the resource file.  For options
that can be given more than once, ‘--ignore’ for example, command line
options and resource options are appended together.

   For options that take a file path, environment variables and the
tilde character (‘~’) are expanded.  An environment variable can be
given in either the ‘$VAR’ or ‘${VAR}’ form.  To prevent expansion,
escape the ‘$’ or ‘~’ with a backslash.

   The options ‘-D’, ‘-S’, and ‘-R’ are ignored in resource files.  This
is also true of any package names given in the resource file.


File: stow.info,  Node: Compile-time vs Install-time,  Next: Bootstrapping,  Prev: Resource Files,  Up: Top

12 Compile-time vs Install-time
*******************************

Software whose installation is managed with Stow needs to be installed
in one place (the package directory, e.g.  ‘/usr/local/stow/perl’) but
needs to appear to run in another place (the target tree, e.g.,
‘/usr/local’).  Why is this important?  What's wrong with Perl, for
instance, looking for its files in ‘/usr/local/stow/perl’ instead of in
‘/usr/local’?

   The answer is that there may be another package, e.g.,
‘/usr/local/stow/perl-extras’, stowed under ‘/usr/local’.  If Perl is
configured to find its files in ‘/usr/local/stow/perl’, it will never
find the extra files in the ‘perl-extras’ package, even though they're
intended to be found by Perl.  On the other hand, if Perl looks for its
files in ‘/usr/local’, then it will find the intermingled Perl and
‘perl-extras’ files.

   This means that when you compile a package, you must tell it the
location of the run-time, or target tree; but when you install it, you
must place it in the stow tree.

12.1 Advice on changing compilation and installation parameters
===============================================================

Some software packages allow you to specify, at compile-time, separate
locations for installation and for run-time.  Perl is one such package;
see *note Perl and Perl 5 Modules::.  Others allow you to compile the
package, then give a different destination in the ‘make install’ step
without causing the binaries or other files to get rebuilt.  Most GNU
software falls into this category; Emacs is a notable exception.  *Note
GNU Emacs::, and *note Other FSF Software::.

   Still other software packages cannot abide the idea of separate
installation and run-time locations at all.  If you try to ‘make install
prefix=/usr/local/stow/FOO’, then first the whole package will be
recompiled to hardwire the ‘/usr/local/stow/FOO’ path.  With these
packages, it is best to compile normally, then run ‘make -n install’,
which should report all the steps needed to install the just-built
software.  Place this output into a file, edit the commands in the file
to remove recompilation steps and to reflect the Stow-based installation
location, and execute the edited file as a shell script in place of
‘make install’.  Be sure to execute the script using the same shell that
‘make install’ would have used.

   (If you use GNU Make and a shell [such as GNU bash] that understands
‘pushd’ and ‘popd’, you can do the following:

  1. Replace all lines matching ‘make[N]: Entering directory DIR’ with
     ‘pushd DIR’.
  2. Replace all lines matching ‘make[N]: Leaving directory DIR’ with
     ‘popd’.
  3. Delete all lines matching ‘make[N]: Nothing to be done for RULE’.

   Then find other lines in the output containing ‘cd’ or ‘make’
commands and rewrite or delete them.  In particular, you should be able
to delete sections of the script that resemble this:

     for i in DIR_1 DIR_2 ...; do \
       (cd $i; make ARGS ...) \
     done

Note, that's "should be able to," not "can."  Be sure to modulate these
guidelines with plenty of your own intelligence.

   The details of stowing some specific packages are described in the
following sections.

* Menu:

* GNU Emacs::
* Other FSF Software::
* Cygnus Software::
* Perl and Perl 5 Modules::


File: stow.info,  Node: GNU Emacs,  Next: Other FSF Software,  Prev: Compile-time vs Install-time,  Up: Compile-time vs Install-time

12.2 GNU Emacs
==============

Although the Free Software Foundation has many enlightened practices
regarding Makefiles and software installation (see *note Other FSF
Software::), Emacs, its flagship program, doesn't quite follow the
rules.  In particular, most GNU software allows you to write:

     make
     make install prefix=/usr/local/stow/PACKAGE

If you try this with Emacs, then the new value for PREFIX in the ‘make
install’ step will cause some files to get recompiled with the new value
of PREFIX wired into them.  In Emacs 19.23 and later,(1) the way to work
around this problem is:

     make
     make install-arch-dep install-arch-indep prefix=/usr/local/stow/emacs

   In 19.22 and some prior versions of Emacs, the workaround was:

     make
     make do-install prefix=/usr/local/stow/emacs

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) As I write this, the current version of Emacs is 19.31.


File: stow.info,  Node: Other FSF Software,  Next: Cygnus Software,  Prev: GNU Emacs,  Up: Compile-time vs Install-time

12.3 Other FSF Software
=======================

The Free Software Foundation, the organization behind the GNU project,
has been unifying the build procedure for its tools for some time.
Thanks to its tools ‘autoconf’ and ‘automake’, most packages now respond
well to these simple steps, with no other intervention necessary:

     ./configure OPTIONS
     make
     make install prefix=/usr/local/stow/PACKAGE

   Hopefully, these tools can evolve to be aware of Stow-managed
packages, such that providing an option to ‘configure’ can allow ‘make’
and ‘make install’ steps to work correctly without needing to "fool" the
build process.


File: stow.info,  Node: Cygnus Software,  Next: Perl and Perl 5 Modules,  Prev: Other FSF Software,  Up: Compile-time vs Install-time

12.4 Cygnus Software
====================

Cygnus is a commercial supplier and supporter of GNU software.  It has
also written several of its own packages, released under the terms of
the GNU General Public License; and it has taken over the maintenance of
other packages.  Among the packages released by Cygnus are ‘gdb’,
‘gnats’, and ‘dejagnu’.

   Cygnus packages have the peculiarity that each one unpacks into a
directory tree with a generic top-level Makefile, which is set up to
compile _all_ of Cygnus' packages, any number of which may reside under
the top-level directory.  In other words, even if you're only building
‘gnats’, the top-level Makefile will look for, and try to build, ‘gdb’
and ‘dejagnu’ subdirectories, among many others.

   The result is that if you try ‘make -n install
prefix=/usr/local/stow/PACKAGE’ at the top level of a Cygnus package,
you'll get a bewildering amount of output.  It will then be very
difficult to visually scan the output to see whether the install will
proceed correctly.  Unfortunately, it's not always clear how to invoke
an install from the subdirectory of interest.

   In cases like this, the best approach is to run your ‘make install
prefix=...’, but be ready to interrupt it if you detect that it is
recompiling files.  Usually it will work just fine; otherwise, install
manually.


File: stow.info,  Node: Perl and Perl 5 Modules,  Prev: Cygnus Software,  Up: Compile-time vs Install-time

12.5 Perl and Perl 5 Modules
============================

Perl 4.036 allows you to specify different locations for installation
and for run-time.  It is the only widely-used package in this author's
experience that allows this, though hopefully more packages will adopt
this model.

   Unfortunately, the authors of Perl believed that only AFS sites need
this ability.  The configuration instructions for Perl 4 misleadingly
state that some occult means are used under AFS to transport files from
their installation tree to their run-time tree.  In fact, that confusion
arises from the fact that Depot, Stow's predecessor, originated at
Carnegie Mellon University, which was also the birthplace of AFS. CMU's
need to separate install-time and run-time trees stemmed from its use of
Depot, not from AFS.

   The result of this confusion is that Perl 5's configuration script
doesn't even offer the option of separating install-time and run-time
trees _unless_ you're running AFS. Fortunately, after you've entered all
the configuration settings, Perl's setup script gives you the
opportunity to edit those settings in a file called ‘config.sh’.  When
prompted, you should edit this file and replace occurrences of

     inst.../usr/local...

with

     inst.../usr/local/stow/perl...

You can do this with the following Unix command:

     sed 's,^\(inst.*/usr/local\),\1/stow/perl,' config.sh > config.sh.new
     mv config.sh.new config.sh

   Hopefully, the Perl authors will correct this deficiency in Perl 5's
configuration mechanism.

   Perl 5 modules--i.e., extensions to Perl 5--generally conform to a
set of standards for building and installing them.  The standard says
that the package comes with a top-level ‘Makefile.PL’, which is a Perl
script.  When it runs, it generates a ‘Makefile’.

   If you followed the instructions above for editing ‘config.sh’ when
Perl was built, then when you create a ‘Makefile’ from a ‘Makefile.PL’,
it will contain separate locations for run-time (‘/usr/local’) and
install-time (‘/usr/local/stow/perl’).  Thus you can do

     perl Makefile.PL
     make
     make install

and the files will be installed into ‘/usr/local/stow/perl’.  However,
you might prefer each Perl module to be stowed separately.  In that
case, you must edit the resulting Makefile, replacing
‘/usr/local/stow/perl’ with ‘/usr/local/stow/MODULE’.  The best way to
do this is:

     perl Makefile.PL
     find . -name Makefile -print | \
       xargs perl -pi~ -e 's,^(INST.*/stow)/perl,$1/MODULE,;'
     make
     make install

(The use of ‘find’ and ‘xargs’ ensures that all Makefiles in the
module's source tree, even those in subdirectories, get edited.)  A good
convention to follow is to name the stow directory for a Perl MODULE
‘cpan.MODULE’, where ‘cpan’ stands for Comprehensive Perl Archive
Network, a collection of FTP sites that is the source of most Perl 5
extensions.  This way, it's easy to tell at a glance which of the
subdirectories of ‘/usr/local/stow’ are Perl 5 extensions.

   When you stow separate Perl 5 modules separately, you are likely to
encounter conflicts (*note Conflicts::) with files named ‘.exists’ and
‘perllocal.pod’.  One way to work around this is to remove those files
before stowing the module.  If you use the ‘cpan.MODULE’ naming
convention, you can simply do this:

     cd /usr/local/stow
     find cpan.* \( -name .exists -o -name perllocal.pod \) -print | \
       xargs rm


File: stow.info,  Node: Bootstrapping,  Next: Reporting Bugs,  Prev: Compile-time vs Install-time,  Up: Top

13 Bootstrapping
****************

Suppose you have a stow directory all set up and ready to go:
‘/usr/local/stow/perl’ contains the Perl installation,
‘/usr/local/stow/stow’ contains Stow itself, and perhaps you have other
packages waiting to be stowed.  You'd like to be able to do this:

     cd /usr/local/stow
     stow -vv *

but ‘stow’ is not yet in your ‘PATH’.  Nor can you do this:

     cd /usr/local/stow
     stow/bin/stow -vv *

because the ‘#!’ line at the beginning of ‘stow’ tries to locate Perl
(usually in ‘/usr/local/bin/perl’), and that won't be found.  The
solution you must use is:

     cd /usr/local/stow
     perl/bin/perl stow/bin/stow -vv *


File: stow.info,  Node: Reporting Bugs,  Next: Known Bugs,  Prev: Bootstrapping,  Up: Top

14 Reporting Bugs
*****************

Please send bug reports to the current maintainers by electronic mail.
The address to use is ‘<bug-stow@gnu.org>’.  Please include:

   • the version number of Stow (‘stow --version’);

   • the version number of Perl (‘perl -v’);

   • the system information, which can often be obtained with ‘uname
     -a’;

   • a description of the bug;

   • the precise command you gave;

   • the output from the command (preferably verbose output, obtained by
     adding ‘--verbose=3’ to the Stow command line).

   If you are really keen, consider developing a minimal test case and
creating a new test.  See the ‘t/’ directory in the source for lots of
examples.

   Before reporting a bug, please read the manual carefully, especially
*note Known Bugs::, to see whether you're encountering something that
doesn't need reporting.  (*note Conflicts::).


File: stow.info,  Node: Known Bugs,  Next: GNU General Public License,  Prev: Reporting Bugs,  Up: Top

15 Known Bugs
*************

There are no known bugs in Stow version 2.3.2-fixbug56727!  If you think
you have found one, please *note Reporting Bugs::.


File: stow.info,  Node: GNU General Public License,  Next: Index,  Prev: Known Bugs,  Up: Top

GNU General Public License
**************************

                        Version 3, 29 June 2007

     Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <https://fsf.org/>

     Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
     license document, but changing it is not allowed.

Preamble
========

The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software
and other kinds of works.

   The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed
to take away your freedom to share and change the works.  By contrast,
the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to
share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free
software for all its users.  We, the Free Software Foundation, use the
GNU General Public License for most of our software; it applies also to
any other work released this way by its authors.  You can apply it to
your programs, too.

   When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
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TERMS AND CONDITIONS
====================

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     conditions are met.  This License explicitly affirms your unlimited
     permission to run the unmodified Program.  The output from running
     a covered work is covered by this License only if the output, given
     its content, constitutes a covered work.  This License acknowledges
     your rights of fair use or other equivalent, as provided by
     copyright law.

     You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not
     convey, without conditions so long as your license otherwise
     remains in force.  You may convey covered works to others for the
     sole purpose of having them make modifications exclusively for you,
     or provide you with facilities for running those works, provided
     that you comply with the terms of this License in conveying all
     material for which you do not control copyright.  Those thus making
     or running the covered works for you must do so exclusively on your
     behalf, under your direction and control, on terms that prohibit
     them from making any copies of your copyrighted material outside
     their relationship with you.

     Conveying under any other circumstances is permitted solely under
     the conditions stated below.  Sublicensing is not allowed; section
     10 makes it unnecessary.

  3. Protecting Users' Legal Rights From Anti-Circumvention Law.

     No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological
     measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under
     article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December
     1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of
     such measures.

     When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid
     circumvention of technological measures to the extent such
     circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License
     with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to
     limit operation or modification of the work as a means of
     enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal
     rights to forbid circumvention of technological measures.

  4. Conveying Verbatim Copies.

     You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you
     receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and
     appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice;
     keep intact all notices stating that this License and any
     non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the
     code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and
     give all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program.

     You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey,
     and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee.

  5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.

     You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to
     produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the
     terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these
     conditions:

       a. The work must carry prominent notices stating that you
          modified it, and giving a relevant date.

       b. The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is
          released under this License and any conditions added under
          section 7.  This requirement modifies the requirement in
          section 4 to "keep intact all notices".

       c. You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this
          License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.  This
          License will therefore apply, along with any applicable
          section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all
          its parts, regardless of how they are packaged.  This License
          gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but
          it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately
          received it.

       d. If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display
          Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has
          interactive interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal
          Notices, your work need not make them do so.

     A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent
     works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered
     work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger
     program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is
     called an "aggregate" if the compilation and its resulting
     copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the
     compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit.
     Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this
     License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.

  6. Conveying Non-Source Forms.

     You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms
     of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the
     machine-readable Corresponding Source under the terms of this
     License, in one of these ways:

       a. Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product
          (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by the
          Corresponding Source fixed on a durable physical medium
          customarily used for software interchange.

       b. Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product
          (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by a
          written offer, valid for at least three years and valid for as
          long as you offer spare parts or customer support for that
          product model, to give anyone who possesses the object code
          either (1) a copy of the Corresponding Source for all the
          software in the product that is covered by this License, on a
          durable physical medium customarily used for software
          interchange, for a price no more than your reasonable cost of
          physically performing this conveying of source, or (2) access
          to copy the Corresponding Source from a network server at no
          charge.

       c. Convey individual copies of the object code with a copy of the
          written offer to provide the Corresponding Source.  This
          alternative is allowed only occasionally and noncommercially,
          and only if you received the object code with such an offer,
          in accord with subsection 6b.

       d. Convey the object code by offering access from a designated
          place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to
          the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same
          place at no further charge.  You need not require recipients
          to copy the Corresponding Source along with the object code.
          If the place to copy the object code is a network server, the
          Corresponding Source may be on a different server (operated by
          you or a third party) that supports equivalent copying
          facilities, provided you maintain clear directions next to the
          object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source.
          Regardless of what server hosts the Corresponding Source, you
          remain obligated to ensure that it is available for as long as
          needed to satisfy these requirements.

       e. Convey the object code using peer-to-peer transmission,
          provided you inform other peers where the object code and
          Corresponding Source of the work are being offered to the
          general public at no charge under subsection 6d.

     A separable portion of the object code, whose source code is
     excluded from the Corresponding Source as a System Library, need
     not be included in conveying the object code work.

     A "User Product" is either (1) a "consumer product", which means
     any tangible personal property which is normally used for personal,
     family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for
     incorporation into a dwelling.  In determining whether a product is
     a consumer product, doubtful cases shall be resolved in favor of
     coverage.  For a particular product received by a particular user,
     "normally used" refers to a typical or common use of that class of
     product, regardless of the status of the particular user or of the
     way in which the particular user actually uses, or expects or is
     expected to use, the product.  A product is a consumer product
     regardless of whether the product has substantial commercial,
     industrial or non-consumer uses, unless such uses represent the
     only significant mode of use of the product.

     "Installation Information" for a User Product means any methods,
     procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to
     install and execute modified versions of a covered work in that
     User Product from a modified version of its Corresponding Source.
     The information must suffice to ensure that the continued
     functioning of the modified object code is in no case prevented or
     interfered with solely because modification has been made.

     If you convey an object code work under this section in, or with,
     or specifically for use in, a User Product, and the conveying
     occurs as part of a transaction in which the right of possession
     and use of the User Product is transferred to the recipient in
     perpetuity or for a fixed term (regardless of how the transaction
     is characterized), the Corresponding Source conveyed under this
     section must be accompanied by the Installation Information.  But
     this requirement does not apply if neither you nor any third party
     retains the ability to install modified object code on the User
     Product (for example, the work has been installed in ROM).

     The requirement to provide Installation Information does not
     include a requirement to continue to provide support service,
     warranty, or updates for a work that has been modified or installed
     by the recipient, or for the User Product in which it has been
     modified or installed.  Access to a network may be denied when the
     modification itself materially and adversely affects the operation
     of the network or violates the rules and protocols for
     communication across the network.

     Corresponding Source conveyed, and Installation Information
     provided, in accord with this section must be in a format that is
     publicly documented (and with an implementation available to the
     public in source code form), and must require no special password
     or key for unpacking, reading or copying.

  7. Additional Terms.

     "Additional permissions" are terms that supplement the terms of
     this License by making exceptions from one or more of its
     conditions.  Additional permissions that are applicable to the
     entire Program shall be treated as though they were included in
     this License, to the extent that they are valid under applicable
     law.  If additional permissions apply only to part of the Program,
     that part may be used separately under those permissions, but the
     entire Program remains governed by this License without regard to
     the additional permissions.

     When you convey a copy of a covered work, you may at your option
     remove any additional permissions from that copy, or from any part
     of it.  (Additional permissions may be written to require their own
     removal in certain cases when you modify the work.)  You may place
     additional permissions on material, added by you to a covered work,
     for which you have or can give appropriate copyright permission.

     Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, for material
     you add to a covered work, you may (if authorized by the copyright
     holders of that material) supplement the terms of this License with
     terms:

       a. Disclaiming warranty or limiting liability differently from
          the terms of sections 15 and 16 of this License; or

       b. Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices
          or author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate
          Legal Notices displayed by works containing it; or

       c. Prohibiting misrepresentation of the origin of that material,
          or requiring that modified versions of such material be marked
          in reasonable ways as different from the original version; or

       d. Limiting the use for publicity purposes of names of licensors
          or authors of the material; or

       e. Declining to grant rights under trademark law for use of some
          trade names, trademarks, or service marks; or

       f. Requiring indemnification of licensors and authors of that
          material by anyone who conveys the material (or modified
          versions of it) with contractual assumptions of liability to
          the recipient, for any liability that these contractual
          assumptions directly impose on those licensors and authors.

     All other non-permissive additional terms are considered "further
     restrictions" within the meaning of section 10.  If the Program as
     you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that
     it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further
     restriction, you may remove that term.  If a license document
     contains a further restriction but permits relicensing or conveying
     under this License, you may add to a covered work material governed
     by the terms of that license document, provided that the further
     restriction does not survive such relicensing or conveying.

     If you add terms to a covered work in accord with this section, you
     must place, in the relevant source files, a statement of the
     additional terms that apply to those files, or a notice indicating
     where to find the applicable terms.

     Additional terms, permissive or non-permissive, may be stated in
     the form of a separately written license, or stated as exceptions;
     the above requirements apply either way.

  8. Termination.

     You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly
     provided under this License.  Any attempt otherwise to propagate or
     modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights
     under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the
     third paragraph of section 11).

     However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your
     license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a)
     provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and
     finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the
     copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some
     reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation.

     Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is
     reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the
     violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have
     received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from
     that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days
     after your receipt of the notice.

     Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate
     the licenses of parties who have received copies or rights from you
     under this License.  If your rights have been terminated and not
     permanently reinstated, you do not qualify to receive new licenses
     for the same material under section 10.

  9. Acceptance Not Required for Having Copies.

     You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or
     run a copy of the Program.  Ancillary propagation of a covered work
     occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer
     transmission to receive a copy likewise does not require
     acceptance.  However, nothing other than this License grants you
     permission to propagate or modify any covered work.  These actions
     infringe copyright if you do not accept this License.  Therefore,
     by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your
     acceptance of this License to do so.

  10. Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients.

     Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically
     receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and
     propagate that work, subject to this License.  You are not
     responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this
     License.

     An "entity transaction" is a transaction transferring control of an
     organization, or substantially all assets of one, or subdividing an
     organization, or merging organizations.  If propagation of a
     covered work results from an entity transaction, each party to that
     transaction who receives a copy of the work also receives whatever
     licenses to the work the party's predecessor in interest had or
     could give under the previous paragraph, plus a right to possession
     of the Corresponding Source of the work from the predecessor in
     interest, if the predecessor has it or can get it with reasonable
     efforts.

     You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the
     rights granted or affirmed under this License.  For example, you
     may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise
     of rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate
     litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit)
     alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using,
     selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion
     of it.

  11. Patents.

     A "contributor" is a copyright holder who authorizes use under this
     License of the Program or a work on which the Program is based.
     The work thus licensed is called the contributor's "contributor
     version".

     A contributor's "essential patent claims" are all patent claims
     owned or controlled by the contributor, whether already acquired or
     hereafter acquired, that would be infringed by some manner,
     permitted by this License, of making, using, or selling its
     contributor version, but do not include claims that would be
     infringed only as a consequence of further modification of the
     contributor version.  For purposes of this definition, "control"
     includes the right to grant patent sublicenses in a manner
     consistent with the requirements of this License.

     Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide,
     royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential
     patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and
     otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor
     version.

     In the following three paragraphs, a "patent license" is any
     express agreement or commitment, however denominated, not to
     enforce a patent (such as an express permission to practice a
     patent or covenant not to sue for patent infringement).  To "grant"
     such a patent license to a party means to make such an agreement or
     commitment not to enforce a patent against the party.

     If you convey a covered work, knowingly relying on a patent
     license, and the Corresponding Source of the work is not available
     for anyone to copy, free of charge and under the terms of this
     License, through a publicly available network server or other
     readily accessible means, then you must either (1) cause the
     Corresponding Source to be so available, or (2) arrange to deprive
     yourself of the benefit of the patent license for this particular
     work, or (3) arrange, in a manner consistent with the requirements
     of this License, to extend the patent license to downstream
     recipients.  "Knowingly relying" means you have actual knowledge
     that, but for the patent license, your conveying the covered work
     in a country, or your recipient's use of the covered work in a
     country, would infringe one or more identifiable patents in that
     country that you have reason to believe are valid.

     If, pursuant to or in connection with a single transaction or
     arrangement, you convey, or propagate by procuring conveyance of, a
     covered work, and grant a patent license to some of the parties
     receiving the covered work authorizing them to use, propagate,
     modify or convey a specific copy of the covered work, then the
     patent license you grant is automatically extended to all
     recipients of the covered work and works based on it.

     A patent license is "discriminatory" if it does not include within
     the scope of its coverage, prohibits the exercise of, or is
     conditioned on the non-exercise of one or more of the rights that
     are specifically granted under this License.  You may not convey a
     covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with a third
     party that is in the business of distributing software, under which
     you make payment to the third party based on the extent of your
     activity of conveying the work, and under which the third party
     grants, to any of the parties who would receive the covered work
     from you, a discriminatory patent license (a) in connection with
     copies of the covered work conveyed by you (or copies made from
     those copies), or (b) primarily for and in connection with specific
     products or compilations that contain the covered work, unless you
     entered into that arrangement, or that patent license was granted,
     prior to 28 March 2007.

     Nothing in this License shall be construed as excluding or limiting
     any implied license or other defenses to infringement that may
     otherwise be available to you under applicable patent law.

  12. No Surrender of Others' Freedom.

     If conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement
     or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they
     do not excuse you from the conditions of this License.  If you
     cannot convey a covered work so as to satisfy simultaneously your
     obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations,
     then as a consequence you may not convey it at all.  For example,
     if you agree to terms that obligate you to collect a royalty for
     further conveying from those to whom you convey the Program, the
     only way you could satisfy both those terms and this License would
     be to refrain entirely from conveying the Program.

  13. Use with the GNU Affero General Public License.

     Notwithstanding any other provision of this License, you have
     permission to link or combine any covered work with a work licensed
     under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License into a
     single combined work, and to convey the resulting work.  The terms
     of this License will continue to apply to the part which is the
     covered work, but the special requirements of the GNU Affero
     General Public License, section 13, concerning interaction through
     a network will apply to the combination as such.

  14. Revised Versions of this License.

     The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new
     versions of the GNU General Public License from time to time.  Such
     new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but
     may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

     Each version is given a distinguishing version number.  If the
     Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU
     General Public License "or any later version" applies to it, you
     have the option of following the terms and conditions either of
     that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free
     Software Foundation.  If the Program does not specify a version
     number of the GNU General Public License, you may choose any
     version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

     If the Program specifies that a proxy can decide which future
     versions of the GNU General Public License can be used, that
     proxy's public statement of acceptance of a version permanently
     authorizes you to choose that version for the Program.

     Later license versions may give you additional or different
     permissions.  However, no additional obligations are imposed on any
     author or copyright holder as a result of your choosing to follow a
     later version.

  15. Disclaimer of Warranty.

     THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY
     APPLICABLE LAW.  EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE
     COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS"
     WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED,
     INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
     MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  THE ENTIRE
     RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU.
     SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL
     NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

  16. Limitation of Liability.

     IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN
     WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES
     AND/OR CONVEYS THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR
     DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR
     CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE
     THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA
     BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD
     PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
     PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF
     THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

  17. Interpretation of Sections 15 and 16.

     If the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability provided
     above cannot be given local legal effect according to their terms,
     reviewing courts shall apply local law that most closely
     approximates an absolute waiver of all civil liability in
     connection with the Program, unless a warranty or assumption of
     liability accompanies a copy of the Program in return for a fee.

END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
===========================

How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
=============================================

If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these
terms.

   To do so, attach the following notices to the program.  It is safest
to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
state the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the
"copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

     ONE LINE TO GIVE THE PROGRAM'S NAME AND A BRIEF IDEA OF WHAT IT DOES.
     Copyright (C) YEAR NAME OF AUTHOR

     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 3 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, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

   Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper
mail.

   If the program does terminal interaction, make it output a short
notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:

     PROGRAM Copyright (C) YEAR NAME OF AUTHOR
     This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type ‘show w’.
     This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
     under certain conditions; type ‘show c’ for details.

   The hypothetical commands ‘show w’ and ‘show c’ should show the
appropriate parts of the General Public License.  Of course, your
program's commands might be different; for a GUI interface, you would
use an "about box".

   You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or
school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
necessary.  For more information on this, and how to apply and follow
the GNU GPL, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

   The GNU General Public License does not permit incorporating your
program into proprietary programs.  If your program is a subroutine
library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary
applications with the library.  If this is what you want to do, use the
GNU Lesser General Public License instead of this License.  But first,
please read <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html>.


File: stow.info,  Node: Index,  Prev: GNU General Public License,  Up: Top

Index
*****

[index]
* Menu:

* absolute symlink:                      Terminology.         (line  43)
* adopting existing files:               Invoking Stow.       (line 115)
* configuration files:                   Resource Files.      (line   6)
* conflicts:                             Installing Packages. (line  85)
* conflicts <1>:                         Conflicts.           (line   6)
* deferred operation:                    Conflicts.           (line  24)
* deferred operation <1>:                Mixing Operations.   (line  15)
* deletion:                              Deleting Packages.   (line   6)
* directory folding:                     Installing Packages. (line  16)
* dotfiles:                              Invoking Stow.       (line  87)
* dry run:                               Invoking Stow.       (line 137)
* folding trees:                         Installing Packages. (line  16)
* ignore lists:                          Ignore Lists.        (line   6)
* ignore lists <1>:                      Motivation For Ignore Lists.
                                                              (line  25)
* ignoring files and directories:        Ignore Lists.        (line   6)
* installation:                          Installing Packages. (line   6)
* installation conflicts:                Installing Packages. (line  85)
* installation image:                    Terminology.         (line  23)
* maintenance:                           Target Maintenance.  (line   6)
* mixing operations:                     Mixing Operations.   (line   6)
* ownership:                             Installing Packages. (line  72)
* package:                               Terminology.         (line   6)
* package directory:                     Terminology.         (line  30)
* package name:                          Terminology.         (line  30)
* refolding trees:                       Deleting Packages.   (line  25)
* relative symlink:                      Terminology.         (line  43)
* resource files:                        Resource Files.      (line   6)
* simulated run:                         Invoking Stow.       (line 137)
* splitting open folded trees:           Installing Packages. (line  51)
* stow directory:                        Terminology.         (line  16)
* symlink:                               Terminology.         (line  43)
* target directory:                      Terminology.         (line  11)
* tree folding:                          Installing Packages. (line  16)
* tree refolding:                        Deleting Packages.   (line  25)
* tree unfolding:                        Installing Packages. (line  51)
* tree unsplitting:                      Installing Packages. (line  51)
* unfolding trees:                       Installing Packages. (line  51)
* verbosity levels:                      Invoking Stow.       (line 143)



Tag Table:
Node: Top1427
Node: Introduction3088
Ref: Introduction-Footnote-16570
Ref: Introduction-Footnote-26679
Ref: Introduction-Footnote-36777
Node: Terminology6854
Node: Invoking Stow9349
Node: Ignore Lists17276
Node: Motivation For Ignore Lists17540
Node: Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists19071
Ref: Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists-Footnote-122368
Ref: Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists-Footnote-222534
Ref: Types And Syntax Of Ignore Lists-Footnote-322778
Node: Justification For Yet Another Set Of Ignore Files22927
Node: Installing Packages24542
Ref: tree folding25104
Ref: Tree unfolding27102
Node: Deleting Packages29241
Ref: tree refolding30304
Ref: Deleting Packages-Footnote-130853
Node: Conflicts31449
Ref: Deferred Operation32439
Node: Mixing Operations33039
Node: Multiple Stow Directories34031
Node: Target Maintenance35115
Node: Resource Files36398
Node: Compile-time vs Install-time38993
Node: GNU Emacs42502
Ref: GNU Emacs-Footnote-143491
Node: Other FSF Software43555
Node: Cygnus Software44336
Node: Perl and Perl 5 Modules45847
Node: Bootstrapping49476
Node: Reporting Bugs50285
Node: Known Bugs51300
Node: GNU General Public License51560
Node: Index89114

End Tag Table


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