How to build ledger with Visual Studio 2008

Let me start by saying that this is probably not suitable for someone with
little C++ and/or Visual Studio experience. This document does assume some
basic knowledger about configuring VS, building C++ projects in general etc.

1. To start, get git from http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/ and install
   it. Checkout ledger from the git repository using the instructions on
   http://github.com/jwiegley/ledger.

2. Next, Download the libraries you need:

   - mpir: http://www.mpir.org/
     (mpir is a source-level alternative for GMP, which supports Windows)
   - mpfr: http://www.mpfr.org/
   - boost: http://www.boost.org/

   Extract mpir & mpfr to lib/win/mpfr & lib/win/mpir.

3. Download the mpfr Visual Studio project files from

   http://gladman.plushost.co.uk/oldsite/computing/gmp4win.php

4. If you didn't download the binary distribution of boost, build it yourself.
   These libraries are linked statically so you need to the static versions.

   Use the following command to build boost (bjam is a separate tool to be
   downloaded from the boost website):

     bjam toolset=msvc-9.0 --build-type=complete
       define=_BIND_TO_CURRENT_MFC_VERSION=1
       define=_BIND_TO_CURRENT_CRT_VERSION=1
       stage

5. Add the boost directory to your VS include directories, and the stage/lib
   directory to the library directories.

6. Checkout utfcpp by updating Ledger's Git submodules:

     git submodule update --init

7. Finally, open the ledger.sln solution and hit build.


If you also want to build the installer, you will first need to somehow
generate the documentation pdf in the doc/ directory. You can either do this
using a TeX distribution for Windows, or copy it from a Linux machine. Next
run the build.bat command in the dist/win/installer directory. The resulting
installer package will be copied to this directory, too.