See also the generic INSTALL file for configure options Compilation 1. What is the process to compile libxml? As most UNIX libraries libxml follows the "standard": gunzip -c xxx.tar.gz | tar xvf - cd libxml-xxxx ./configure --help to see the options, then the compilation/installation proper ./configure [possible options] make make install At that point you may have to rerun ldconfig or similar utility to update your list of installed shared libs. At this point you can check that the library is properly functioning by running make check Please report test failures to the mailing list or bug tracker. Another option for compiling libxml is using CMake: cmake -E tar xf libxml2-xxx.tar.gz cmake -S libxml2-xxx -B libxml2-xxx-build [possible options] cmake --build libxml2-xxx-build cmake --install libxml2-xxx-build Common CMake options include: -D BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=OFF # build static libraries -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release # specify build type -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local # specify the install path -D LIBXML2_WITH_ICONV=OFF # disable iconv -D LIBXML2_WITH_LZMA=OFF # disable liblzma -D LIBXML2_WITH_PYTHON=OFF # disable Python -D LIBXML2_WITH_ZLIB=OFF # disable libz You can also open the libxml source directory with its CMakeLists.txt directly in various IDEs such as CLion, QtCreator, or Visual Studio. 2. What other libraries are needed to compile/install libxml? Libxml does not require any other libraries. A platform with somewhat recent POSIX support should be sufficient (please report any violation to this rule you may find). However if found at configuration time, libxml will detect and use the following libs: libz: a highly portable and widely available compression library https://zlib.net/ liblzma: another compression library https://tukaani.org/xz/ iconv: a powerful character encoding conversion library. It's part of POSIX.1-2001, so it doesn't need to be installed on modern UNIX-like systems, specifically on Linux. https://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/ ICU: Mainly used by Chromium on Windows. Unnecessary on most systems. Daniel veillard@redhat.com