Re: [Axiom-developer] build-improvements on cygwin

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

"Bill Page" <address@hidden> writes:

[...]

| I built gcl-2.6.8pre and Axiom (from axiom--windows--1) in September

I installed mingw on yet another machine, restarted everything from
scratch, and now I can report that I was able to build GCL-2.6.8pre
on mingw and preliminary tests I made were working.

However, I was unable to build a working gcl on cygwin using the mingw
package.  The generated executable does not use cygwin dll, but
raw_pre_gcl generated a stack overflow (my mingw/cygwin-fu is not
adequate to tackle a debug yet).  Consequently, the link for saved_gcl
with for unresolved symbols (which are present in libgcl.a!).

Then I decided to try build-improvements on mingw to get a feeling.
That led to to rethink some configure test.  Pristine noweb cannot be
compiled  on mingw because the archive contains symlinks.  So untarred
noweb using cygwin, modified the makefile using cygwin, then invoked
make [all install] under mingw.  I had a functional noweb installed.
Next, the modified build-improvement's configure completed (under
mingw).  Make stopped on bsdsignal.c.  Which prompted me to look into,
and get out horrified: Axiom has a tendency of checking for platforms,
when in fact it is interested in functionalities most of the time.
I changed bsdsignal.c to test for availability of sigaction(),
SA_RESTART, SA_INTERRUPT, etc.  The build proceeded till func_key.c
which has some calls to fork() and wait().  At that point, I decided
that I had enough experience for tonight and tackle daytime job
things.

I'll install a cross-compiling environment linux-x-mingw and use that
for further investigation.  And I'll tackle the mingw/cygwin issue
much later when time permits.


-- Gaby