Build from source

Prerequisites

• CMake ≥ 3.15
• A C/C++17 toolchain
• macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools
• Linux: gcc or clang + make
• Windows: Visual Studio Build Tools 2022+
• git (for cloning with submodules)

No system dependencies — all third-party libraries (zlib, zstd, lz4, base64, yxml) are vendored under vendor/.

Clone

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/chrisagrams/mscompress.git
cd mscompress

If you already cloned without submodules:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Build

cmake -S . -B .
cmake --build .

The binary is produced at ./cli/mscompress.

Test

ctest --test-dir cli

Run a single test by name:

ctest --test-dir cli -R CompressTest
ctest --test-dir cli -R "MZLossy_delta32"

Install (optional)

The build does not install the binary to a system location by default. Copy it manually:

sudo cp cli/mscompress /usr/local/bin/

Or run from the build tree.

Debug build

cmake -S . -B . -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
cmake --build .

Then attach lldb / gdb / valgrind to the resulting binary.