Prerequisites

Before installing, make sure you have the following tools available on your system.

Windows

🔧

CMake 3.10+Build system generator

⚙️

MinGW-w64GCC compiler for Windows

💻

Command PromptRun as Administrator

Linux

🔧

CMake 3.10+Build system generator

⚙️

GCC / G++C/C++ compiler

🐧

MakeBuild automation tool

Install STARKDB

Choose your platform and follow the steps below.

DOWNLOAD FROM GITHUB

Step 1 — Download

Go to the GitHub repository and download the ZIP file. Extract it to your project folder.

# You should end up with a path like:
C:\my_project\starkdb

Step 2 — Open Terminal

Press Windows Key, type cmd, right-click, and select "Run as Administrator".

Step 3 — Navigate & Build

# Go to STARK folder
cd C:\my_project\starkdb
mkdir build
cd build

# Generate makefiles and build
cmake .. -G "MinGW Makefiles" -DBUILD_SHARED=ON
mingw32-make

Step 4 — Install

Copy the built library and headers to your MinGW directories so any project can use STARK.

# Copy library files
copy libstark.dll C:\mingw64\bin\
copy libstark.dll.a C:\mingw64\lib\

# Copy headers
copy ..\bindings\cpp\stark.hpp C:\mingw64\include\
copy ..\core\include\stark.h C:\mingw64\include\

This is a one-time setup. After installation, you can use #include <stark.hpp> in any C++ project on your system.

Step 1 — Clone the Repository

cd ~/Desktop/my_project
git clone https://github.com/abdullahtnz/starkdb.git
cd starkdb

Step 2 — Build

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DBUILD_SHARED=ON
make

Step 3 — Install System-Wide

sudo make install
sudo ldconfig

This is a one-time setup. make install copies the library to /usr/local/lib and headers to /usr/local/include. ldconfig refreshes the shared library cache.

Verify Installation

After installation, create a quick test file to make sure everything works.

// test.cpp
#include <stark.hpp>
#include <iostream>

int main() {
    stark::Database db("test_db");
    db.add(1, "Hello STARK!");
    std::cout << db.get(1) << std::endl;
    return 0;
}

Compile and run:

# Linux
g++ test.cpp -lstark -o test
./test

# Windows (MinGW)
g++ test.cpp -lstark -o test.exe
test.exe

If you see Hello STARK! printed to the console, installation was successful.

Quick Start

Once installed, you can use STARK in two ways:

Option A — CLI

💻

Open a database from terminalstark_cli mygame

📝

Use interactive commandsaddn, getn, define, add, get...

💾

Save and exitType "exit" to persist changes

Option B — C++ API

📦

Include the header#include <stark.hpp>

🔗

Link the library-lstark flag during compile

🚀

Start codingstark::Database db("save");

Read the full documentation for detailed CLI command reference and C++ API methods.

Troubleshooting

CMake not found

Make sure CMake is installed and added to your PATH. Download from cmake.org.

MinGW not found (Windows)

Install MinGW-w64 from mingw-w64.org and add C:\mingw64\bin to your system PATH.

Library not found at runtime

On Linux, run sudo ldconfig to refresh the shared library cache. On Windows, make sure libstark.dll is in a directory listed in your PATH (e.g., C:\mingw64\bin).

Compilation errors

Ensure you're linking with -lstark and the headers are in your compiler's include path. If you installed with sudo make install, they should be in /usr/local/include and /usr/local/lib.

Installation