
The 'pkgs' subdirectory of the Tcl source code distribution is meant to be
a place where the source code distribution of Tcl packages may be placed so
that they are built, installed, and tested along with Tcl.  As originally
distributed, Tcl re-distributes a number of packages in this location.  The
build systems for Tcl are written so that additional packages may be added,
or the original packages removed in any number and still have all packages
present get built, installed, and tested along with Tcl.

In order for a package to work properly under the pkgs subdirectory, it
needs to conform to the following conventions.

  All files of the package need to be contained in (subdirs of ...) a
  single subdirectory of the "pkgs" directrory.

  In that subdirectory of "pkgs" there must be an executable file named
  "configure".  When the program "configure" is run, it should generate
  a file "Makefile" in the current working directory.  The "configure"
  program should be able to accept as command line arguments all the
  arguments that can be passed to the master unix/configure program.  It
  should also accept the --with-tcl= and --with-tclinclude= options in
  the conventional way.

  The generated "Makefile" must be one suitable for controlling the operations
  of a `make` program.  The following targets must be defined:

    <default>:	Perform a build of the runtime components of the
		package from sources.

    install:	Copy the runtime components of the package into their
		installed location.  Must respect the DESTDIR variable
		for determining the installation location.

    test:	Run the test suite of the package.  Must respect the
		TCLSH_PROG, TESTFLAGS variables.

    clean:	Delete all files generated by the default build target.

    distclean:	Delete all generated files.

    dist:	Produce a copy of the package's source code distribution.
		Must respect the DIST_ROOT variable determining where to
		write the generated directory.

Packages that are written to make use of the Tcl Extension Architecture (TEA)
and that make use of the tclconfig collection of support files, should
conform to these conventions without further efforts.

These conventions are subject to revision and refinement over time to
better support the needs of the build system.  Efforts will be made to
keep the TEA support scripts consistent with the demands of this system.

In addition, it is requested that packages also support building with
Microsoft Visual Studio tools.  This means the file win/makefile.vc
should be included, suitable for use by the nmake program, defining the
targets <default>, install, test, and clean.

