XSTOW(1)

📦
version 1.1.1 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 XSTOW(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the XStow Reference Guide — yes that's the manual name, it's giving official, it's giving ✨documentation✨. sit down, grab a boba, because we're about to make package management make sense. no cap. 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

XStow, replacement for GNU Stow. that's it, that's the whole name section, she's brief and she's iconic. 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

xstow        [OPTION ...] PACKAGE

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So. XStow is a replacement of GNU Stow (stow) written in C++. Not like "spiritual successor", like literally a replacement, and she supports all features of Stow plus some extensions of her own. main character energy fr fr. 👑

XStow, as GNU Stow, are programs for managing the installation of software packages, keeping them separate (/usr/local/stow/emacs vs. /usr/local/stow/perl, for example) while making them appear to be installed in the same place (/usr/local). like, they're all living in their own little rooms but the guests think it's one big house. lowkey genius.

🎀 USAGE 🎀

xstow [OPTION ...] PACKAGE

Install a package

xstow foobar

Uninstall package

xstow -D foobar

see? not scary. you got this. 💪

👑 OPTIONS 👑

every single one of them, bestie, we're not skipping a crumb:

  • -dl, -debug-level INT — Set's the debug level. An unsigned integer is accepted. The default value is 0.
  • -dm, -debug-module [ALL|ARG|MAIN|TREE|CPPDIR] — Filter messages from a specific module.
  • -h, -help — Shows a help screen.
  • -V, -Version — Displays XStows version number and supported features.
  • -n, -no — Do not actually make changes.
  • -c, -conflicts — Scan for conflicts, implies -n.
  • -s, -simulate — Simulate installation. If this option is set permission problems will be ignored and -verbose will be set to 1.
  • -d, -dir DIR — Set stow dir to DIR. The default is the current directory.
  • -t, -target DIR — Set target to DIR. The default is the parent of the stow directory.
  • -v, -verbose [0|1|2|3] — Increase verboseness. Possible levels are 0,1,2 or 3. Simple setting -v or -verbose adds 1.
  • -D, -delete — Unstow instead of stow. Deinstall the package.
  • -R, -restow — The same like -delete followed by an reinstall.
  • -ap, -absolute-path — Create symlinks with absolute path names. XStow can always handle packages which were installed with this option. Installing one package with absolute path names and one without is no problem. Only the creation of the symlinks will be affected by this option. This will cause that if one package is installed with this option and one without, some of the symlinks of the first package, when they have to be recreated will be recreated as relative ones. It is not good idea doing this, even XStow does not have any problems with it.
Warning: Breaks compatibility with Stow!
  • -tr, -traversable LINKS — A list of links pointing to directories, that can be ignored. eg.: /usr/local/man is a link to /usr/local/share/man
Warning: Breaks compatibility with Stow!
  • -tkt, -tr-keep-targets — Add the list of traversable links also to the keep targets list. This prevents the targets of the links from being removed by XStow, which would cause that the traversable link becomes a dead link.
  • -tre, -tr-auto PATTERN — Automatically add links which target matches this pattern.
  • -tre, -tr-auto-regex REGEX — Automatically add links which target matches this pattern.
  • -kd, -keep-dirs DIR — A list of directories, that should not be removed when a package will be removed.
Warning: Breaks compatibility with Stow!
  • -i, -ignore PATTERN — Ignore files that matches this pattern.
  • -ire, -ignore-regex REGEX — Ignore files that matches this expression.
  • -ni, -nignore PATTERN — Ignore everything except file and directories matching this expression. eg: "systree/bintree systree/headertree". For using nignore support fnmatch and configration file support has to be enabled. For more details see xstow.ini(5).
  • -cp, -copy PATTERN — Copy files or directories that matching this pattern.
  • -cre, -copy-regex REGEX — Copy files or directories that matching this expression.
  • -ifd, -i-file-in-dir DIR/FILE — Ignore this file in this directory. (Relative to the package dir.)
  • -cfd, -c-file-in-dir DIR/FILE — Copy this file in this directory. (Relative to the package dir.)
  • -sd, -stow-dirs DIR — A list of other stow dirs, that xstow is allowed change
  • -sda, -sd-auto PATTERN — Automatically add directories to the list when matching this expression.
  • -sde, -sd-auto-regex REGEX — Automatically add directories to the list when matching this expression.
  • -pd, -protect-dirs DIR — A list of other dirs, that xstow is not allowed change
  • -pda, -pd-auto PATTERN — Automatically add directories to the list when matching this expression.
  • -pde, -pd-auto-regex REGEX — Automatically add directories to the list when matching this expression.
  • -pdt, -pd-targets DIRS — A list of dirs, xstow is allowed to change.
  • -pta, -pdt-add-traversable DIRS — Automatically add the targets of traversable links to the targets list.
  • -f, -force — Skip conflicts if possible.
  • -F file — Read this configuration file too.

🔥 RETURN VALUES 🔥

she tells you how she's feeling via numbers, and honestly? valid.

  • 0 — On success. 🎉
  • 1 — On a missspelled call of xstow. (that's the original spelling, we're keeping it, don't @ me)
  • 2 — If an internal error occoured.
  • 3 — Installing the package failed of some reason. All the prechecking was ok, but the execution of the exec list failed.
  • 4 — Installing a package failed.

🌈 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌈

Since the debugging of the command line parsing can be hard if the debugging level is set by the command line there are two evironment variables:

  • XSTOW_DEBUG_LEVEL — Same as the -debug-level option.
  • XSTOW_DEBUG_MODULE — Same as the -debug-module option.

Both values will be overwritten by the settings of the command line, after the command line was parsed. (so the cli always wins the argument, as she should 💅)

  • XSTOW_USE_CURSES — Same as the -no-curses option.

In later versions xstow tried detecting the terminal width and height, by default at the startup routine. Even if this value is only used by the help screen. The result was:

$ TERM="" xstow
Error opening terminal: unknown.

The error message is reported by the ncurses lib. This can cause problems if you wan't start xstow as a cron job. Now xstow tries detecting the terminal width not in it's startup, but when the help screen is printed out. As an extra option you can set the environment variable XSTOW_USE_CURSES="0" this will tell xstow not using curses anyway. 🧚

🍓 COFIGURATION FILES 🍓

(yes the heading says COFIGURATION, we love her your honor)

The configuration file xstow.ini can be located in /etc and/or in the current stow directory. For possible settings and syntax of this file see xstow.ini(5)

In this manpage there are some detailed informations of some special settings of XStow too. Please read it! fr, go read it. 👀

💜 EXAMPLES 💜

Common Usage

As an example we install the ixlib library into the /usr/local/ tree.

tar xvfz ixlib-0.96.2.tar.gz
cd ixlib-0.96.2
./configure
make

So far, this was business as usual.

Note: by default the configure script prepares the application for being installed into /usr/local/. Have a look at configure --help for more info.

Now installation is done by not installing ixlib directly into /usr/local/, we install it into /usr/local/stow/ixlib-0.96.2/.

make install prefix=/usr/local/stow/ixlib-0.96.2/

The last point is creating all necessare symlinks so that ixlib's include files can be found by the compiler in /usr/local/include. Therefore we are using xstow.

cd /usr/local/stow
xstow ixlib-0.96.2

And all symlinks will be created. look at her go. so efficient. so slay. ✨

Installing XStow by using XStow

(qween behavior honestly, she installs herself)

After calling the configure script and make, XStow is installed into the stow directory as I showed it in the upper example.

make install prefix=/usr/local/stow/xstow-0.1.0

Then you switch to the stow directory and call XStow

cd /usr/local/stow
xstow-0.1.0/bin/xstow xstow-0.1.0

That is it.

💫 COMPATIBLE 💫

By default XStow is fully Stow compatible. The usage of some of the advanced features can cause that Stow cannot handle the tree any more. (so like, she plays nice until you start getting fancy, and then it's every woman for herself 😭)

Command Line Options

XStow supports all command line options of Stow. Even it's format.

Eg.:

xstow --verbose=2 foobar

💀 BUGS 💀

There are some nitty gritty cases, but no known bugs. we love a clean record. no cap.

🌟 WHY 🌟

Stow requires Perl. But what's on systems where no Perl is available, or not yet installed? I tried compiling Stow with perlcc, but it failed.

...and thus, a C++ icon was born. 🎀

🦄 AUTHORS 🦄

XStow was written by Martin Oberzalek <kingleo@gmx.at>. king behavior from a king email address, honestly. 👑

🫶 COPYING 🫶

XStow a replacement of GNU Stow written in C++.

Copyright (C) 2002-2021 by Martin Oberzalek <kingleo@gmx.at>

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 2 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, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

xstow.ini(5) merge-info(1) stow(1)

GNU Stow has an excelent documentation. Have a look at the manual. http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/

okay that's the whole page bestie, you made it to the end, I'm so proud of you 🥹💖 this was XStow 1.1.1, dated 2026-02-10, and yeah — that's the manual, that's the vibe, go stow something iconic. ✨👑💅

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