2.1 How to Install

Here are the steps needed to install the library on Unix systems (more details are provided in the ‘INSTALL’ file):

1. To build MPFR, you first have to install GNU MP (version 4.1 or higher) on your computer. You need a C compiler, preferably GCC, but any reasonable compiler should work. And you need a standard Unix ‘make’ program, plus some other standard Unix utility programs.
2. In the MPFR build directory, type ‘./configure’

   This will prepare the build and setup the options according to your system. If you get error messages, you might check that you use the same compiler and compile options as for GNU MP (see the ‘INSTALL’ file).

3. ‘make’

   This will compile MPFR, and create a library archive file ‘libmpfr.a’. A dynamic library may be produced too (see configure).

4. ‘make check’

   This will make sure MPFR was built correctly. If you get error messages, please report this to ‘mpfr@loria.fr’. (See section Reporting Bugs, for information on what to include in useful bug reports.)

5. ‘make install’

   This will copy the files ‘mpfr.h’ and ‘mpf2mpfr.h’ to the directory ‘/usr/local/include’, the file ‘libmpfr.a’ to the directory ‘/usr/local/lib’, and the file ‘mpfr.info’ to the directory ‘/usr/local/share/info’ (or if you passed the ‘--prefix’ option to ‘configure’, using the prefix directory given as argument to ‘--prefix’ instead of ‘/usr/local’).