The Bitcoin Development Library

License Overview

All files in this repository fall under the license specified in COPYING. The project is licensed as AGPL with a lesser clause. It may be used within a proprietary project, but the core library and any changes to it must be published online. Source code for this library must always remain free for everybody to access.

About Libbitcoin

The libbitcoin toolkit is a set of cross platform C++ libraries for building bitcoin applications. The toolkit consists of several libraries, most of which depend on the foundational libbitcoin library. Each library's repository can be cloned and built using common automake 1.14+ instructions. There are no packages yet in distribution however each library includes an installation script (described below) which is regularly verified in the automated build.

On Linux and Macintosh libbitcoin is built using Autotools as follows.

$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo ldconfig

A minimal libbitcoin build requires boost and libsecp256k1. The libbitcoin/secp256k1 repository is forked from bitcoin-core/secp256k1 in order to control for changes and to incorporate the necessary Visual Studio build. The original repository can be used directly but recent changes to the public interface may cause build breaks. The --enable-module-recovery switch is required.

Detailed instructions are provided below.

• Debian/Ubuntu
• Macintosh
• Windows

Libbitcoin requires a C++11 compiler, currently minimum GCC 4.8.0 or Clang based on LLVM 3.5.

To see your GCC version:

$ g++ --version

g++ (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) 4.8.2
Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

If necessary, upgrade your compiler as follows:

$ sudo apt-get install g++-4.8
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-4.8 50
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-4.8 50
$ sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcov gcov /usr/bin/gcov-4.8 50

Next install the build system (Automake minimum 1.14) and git:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake libtool pkg-config git

Next install the Boost (minimum 1.56.0) development package:

$ sudo apt-get install libboost-all-dev

Next download the install script and enable execution:

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin/version2/install.sh
$ chmod +x install.sh

Finally, install libbitcoin:

$ sudo ./install.sh

Libbitcoin is now installed in /usr/local/.

The OSX installation differs from Linux in the installation of the compiler and packaged dependencies. Libbitcoin supports both Homebrew and MacPorts package managers. Both require Apple's Xcode command line tools. Neither requires Xcode as the tools may be installed independently.

Libbitcoin compiles with Clang on OSX and requires C++11 support. Installation has been verified using Clang based on LLVM 3.5. This version or newer should be installed as part of the Xcode command line tools.

To see your Clang/LLVM version:

$ clang++ --version

Apple LLVM version 6.0 (clang-600.0.54) (based on LLVM 3.5svn)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin14.0.0
Thread model: posix

If required update your version of the command line tools as follows:

$ xcode-select --install

First install Homebrew. Installation requires Ruby and cURL, which are pre-installed on OSX.

$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

You may encounter a prompt to install the Xcode command line developer tools, in which case accept the prompt.

Next install the build system (Automake minimum 1.14) and wget:

$ brew install autoconf automake libtool pkgconfig wget

Next install the Boost (1.56.0 or newer) development package:

$ brew install boost

Next download the install script and enable execution:

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin/version2/install.sh
$ chmod +x install.sh

Finally install libbitcoin:

$ ./install.sh

Libbitcoin is now installed in /usr/local/.

First install MacPorts.

Next install the build system (Automake minimum 1.14) and wget:

$ sudo port install autoconf automake libtool pkgconfig wget

Next install the Boost (1.56.0 or newer) development package. The - options remove MacPort defaults that are not Boost defaults:

$ sudo port install boost -no_single -no_static -python27

Next download the install script and enable execution:

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin/version2/install.sh
$ chmod +x install.sh

Finally install libbitcoin:

$ ./install.sh

Libbitcoin is now installed in /usr/local/.

The install script itself is commented so that the manual build steps for each dependency can be inferred by a developer.

You can run the install script from any directory on your system. By default this will build libbitcoin in a subdirectory named build-libbitcoin and install it to /usr/local/. The install script requires sudo only if you do not have access to the installation location, which you can change using the --prefix option on the installer command line.

The build script clones, builds and installs two unpackaged repositories, namely:

• libbitcoin/secp256k1
• libbitcoin/libbitcoin

The script builds from the head of their version4 and version2 branches respectively. The master branch is a staging area for changes. The version branches are considered release quality.

Any set of ./configure options can be passed via the build script, for example:

$ ./install.sh CFLAGS="-Og -g" --prefix=/home/me/myprefix

Since the addition of BIP-39 and later BIP-38 support, libbitcoin conditionally incorporates ICU. To use the BIP-38 and BIP-39 passphrase normalization features libbitcoin must be compiled with the --with-icu option. Currently libbitcoin-explorer is the only other library that accesses this feature, so if you do not intend to use passphrase normalization this dependency can be avoided.

$ ./install.sh --with-icu

Since the addition of qrcode support, libbitcoin conditionally incorporates qrencode. This requires compiling with the --with-qrencode option. Currently libbitcoin-explorer is the only other library that accesses this feature, so if you do not intend to use qrcode this dependency can be avoided.

$ ./install.sh --with-qrencode

Since the addition of png support, libbitcoin conditionally incorporates libpng (which in turn requires zlib). This requires compiling with the --with-png option. Currently libbitcoin-explorer is the only other library that accesses this feature, so if you do not intend to use png this dependency can be avoided.

$ ./install.sh --with-png

The installer can download and install any or all of these dependencies. ICU is a large package that is not typically preinstalled at a sufficient level. Using these builds ensures compiler and configuration compatailbity across all of the build components. It is recommended to use a prefix directory when building these components.

$ ./install.sh --with-icu --with-png --with-qrencode --build-icu --build-zlib --build-png --build-qrencode --build-boost --prefix=/home/me/myprefix

Visual Studio solutions are maintained for all libbitcoin libraries. NuGet packages exist for dependencies with the exceptions of the optional ZLib, PNG, and QREncode (required for QR code functionality). ICU is integrated into Windows and therefore not required as an additional dependency when using ICU features.

The libbitcoin execution environment supports Windows XP Service Pack 2 and newer.

Libbitcoin requires a C++11 compiler, which means Visual Studio 2013 minimum. Additionally a pre-release compiler must be installed as an update to Visual Studio. Download and install the following tools as necessary. Both are available free of charge:

• Visual Studio 2013 Express
• November 2013 CTP Compiler

Dependencies apart from the libbitcoin libraries are available as NuGet packages. The libbitcoin solution files are configured with references to these packages. To avoid redundancies these references expect a NuGet.config in a central location.

The required set of NuGet packages can be viewed using the NuGet package manager from the libbitcoin solution. The NuGet package manager will automatically download missing packages, either from the build scripts or after prompting you in the Visual Studio environment. For your reference these are the required packages:

• Packages maintained by sergey.shandar
• boost
• boost_chrono-vc120
• boost_date_time-vc120
• boost_filesystem-vc120
• boost_iostreams-vc120
• boost_locale-vc120
• boost_program_options-vc120
• boost_regex-vc120
• boost_system-vc120
• boost_thread-vc120
• boost_unit_test_framework-vc120
• Packages maintained by evoskuil
• secp256k1_vc120

After cloning the the repository the libbitcoin build can be performed manually (from within Visual Studio) or using the buildall.bat script provided in the builds\msvc\build\ subdirectory. The scripts automatically download the required NuGet packages.

Tip: The buildall.bat script builds all valid configurations. The build time can be significantly reduced by disabling all but the desired configuration in buildbase.bat.

The libbitcoin dynamic (DLL) build configurations do not compile, as the exports have not yet been fully implemented. These are currently disabled in the build scripts but you will encounter numerous errors if you build then manually.

The secp256k1 package above is maintained using the same Visual Studio template as all libbitcoin libraries. If so desired it can be built locally, in the same manner as libbitcoin.

• libbitcoin/secp256k1/version4

This change is properly accomplished by disabling the "NuGet Dependencies" in the Visual Studio properties user interface and then importing secp256k1.import.props, which references secp256k1.import.xml.