• Make sure that you have Java installed (if you want to build a minified version of jQuery).
  If not, go to this page and download "Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 5.0"

You now have three options for building jQuery:

• make: If you have access to common UNIX commands (like make, mkdir, rm, cat, and echo) then simply type make to build all the components.

• rake: If you have Ruby Rake installed (on either Windows or UNIX/Linux), you can simply type rake to build all the components.

• ant: If you have Ant installed (or are on Windows and don't have access to make). You can download Ant from here: [http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi].

Note: If you are using either rake or ant, substitute your chosen method in place of make in the examples below. They work identically for all intents and purposes. Quick reference is also available for rake by typing rake -T in the jquery directory.

In the main directory of the distribution (the one that this file is in), type the following to make all versions of jQuery:

make

Here are the individual items that are buildable from the Makefile:

make init

Pull in all the external dependencies (QUnit, Sizzle) for the project.

make jquery

The standard, uncompressed, jQuery code.
Makes: ./dist/jquery.js

make min

A compressed version of jQuery (made the Closure Compiler).
Makes: ./dist/jquery.min.js

make lint

Tests a build of jQuery against JSLint, looking for potential errors or bits of confusing code.

make selector

Builds the selector library for jQuery from Sizzle.
Makes: ./src/selector.js

Finally, you can remove all the built files using the command:

make clean

If you want to build jQuery to a directory that is different from the default location, you can...

Make only: Specify the PREFIX directory, for example:

make PREFIX=/home/john/test/ [command]

With this example, the output files would be contained in /home/john/test/dist/

Rake only: Define the DIST_DIR directory, for example:

rake DIST_DIR=/home/john/test/ [command]

With this example, the output files would be contained in /home/john/test/

In both examples, [command] is optional.

Ant only: You cannot currently build to another directory when using Ant.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them on the jQuery mailing list, which can be found here:
http://docs.jquery.com/Discussion