xref: /curl/docs/INTERNALS.md (revision 86d33001)
1<!--
2Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
3
4SPDX-License-Identifier: curl
5-->
6
7# curl internals
8
9The canonical libcurl internals documentation is now in the [everything
10curl](https://everything.curl.dev/internals) book. This file lists supported
11versions of libs and build tools.
12
13## Portability
14
15 We write curl and libcurl to compile with C89 compilers on 32-bit and up
16 machines. Most of libcurl assumes more or less POSIX compliance but that is
17 not a requirement.
18
19 We write libcurl to build and work with lots of third party tools, and we
20 want it to remain functional and buildable with these and later versions
21 (older versions may still work but is not what we work hard to maintain):
22
23## Dependencies
24
25 We aim to support these or later versions.
26
27 - OpenSSL      0.9.7
28 - GnuTLS       3.1.10
29 - zlib         1.1.4
30 - libssh2      1.0
31 - c-ares       1.16.0
32 - libidn2      2.0.0
33 - wolfSSL      2.0.0
34 - OpenLDAP     2.0
35 - MIT Kerberos 1.2.4
36 - Heimdal      ?
37 - nghttp2      1.15.0
38 - WinSock      2.2 (on Windows 95+ and Windows CE .NET 4.1+)
39
40## Build tools
41
42 When writing code (mostly for generating stuff included in release tarballs)
43 we use a few "build tools" and we make sure that we remain functional with
44 these versions:
45
46 - GNU Libtool  1.4.2
47 - GNU Autoconf 2.59
48 - GNU Automake 1.7
49 - GNU M4       1.4
50 - perl         5.6
51 - roffit       0.5
52 - cmake        3.7
53
54Library Symbols
55===============
56
57 All symbols used internally in libcurl must use a `Curl_` prefix if they are
58 used in more than a single file. Single-file symbols must be made static.
59 Public ("exported") symbols must use a `curl_` prefix. Public API functions
60 are marked with `CURL_EXTERN` in the public header files so that all others
61 can be hidden on platforms where this is possible.
62