Compiling FOP

Compilation is started by executing build, either as a batch file on win32 (build.bat) or as a shell script on unix. Before you can start one of these scripts, you have to setup your classpath and the environment variable JAVA_HOME (see below).

The compilation uses Ant, a replacement of make (you can find more information about Ant at jakarta.apache.org). build.xml is the replacement of makefile. Look there for detailed information on the build process and different targets.

A help screen is shown by calling "build usage".

If you only want to use Fop, you don't need to build it. A fop.jar comes with the distribution.

Setting up your classpath You don't have to setup your classpath; all libraries needed to compile Fop are coming with the distribution and are referenced by the build script, so you only need to care about them, if you build Fop in any other way. See build.bat/build.sh for details.

Setting of JAVA_HOME

You have to set the enviroment variable JAVA_HOME. It must point to your local JDK root directory. This is true, even if you use JDK 1.2 or above, which normally don't need this setting. It is used by Ant, the compilation software.

Problems

If you have problems compiling Fop, please try this first:

delete the build directory completely and try a new build from scratch
check, whether you have an older version of xerces.jar, xalan.jar, batik.jar somewhere in you classpath.

If you still have problems, please look at the page bugs, for further help.