Building Chicken With Mingw and Msys

Chicken Version 2.3

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Mingw Setup
Mingw Packages - http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml
      mingw-runtime-3.9.tar.gz
      w32api-3.6.tar.gz      
      gcc-core-3.4.2-20040916-1.tar.gz
      binutils-2.15.91-20040904-1.tar.gz
      mingw-utils-0.3.tar.gz
      gcc-g++-3.4.2-20040916-1.tar.gz [Probably not needed]
      MSYS-1.0.10.exe
      msysDTK-1.0.1.exe [For sed you can get elsewhere & save some space]

You probably don't need all of the packages listed, but at a minimum
you will need the mingw-runtime, gcc, w32api, and msys packages.  I
installed the others.

1. Extract the gz files into C:\mingw.  If you put them anywhere
   else you will need to adjust all paths accordingly

2. Run the msys installer. It will run a script following the install.
   As the script runs you will be prompted for two items:
   - Where is you mingw?  Enter the correct location.
   - Make fstab entries?  Say yes.

You should be done with mingw setup at this point.



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Alternate setup using Dev-C++ Bloodshed Dev-C++ 
	  
      Packages - I used the package updater to get/update win32, gcc,
      and binutils.
      

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Other Tools

You will need sed if you want to use csc.  This is because we
preprocess csc to substitute text for tool locations.  There are
several places that you can get sed for windows.  If you have gone
with the mingw / msys installation you should already have it.  If you
used the Dev-C++ installation you will probably need to get it from
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/.  Make sure that you get it on you
path.


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Set up the path

Set your path and start a command prompt using something like this
batch file:

set CHICKEN_HOME=C:\working\mingw-only\chicken-2.3
set MINGW_PATH=C:\mingw\bin;C:\msys\1.0\bin
set PATH=C:\working\mingw-only\chicken-2.3;%MINGW_PATH%;C:\WINDOWS\system32;
cmd.exe

Now you can just run this batch file to get a working environment.

I recommend that you eliminate all extraneous path entries.  I ran
into a lot of problems when I used my standard classpath.  Since I do
all sorts of development on this machine the path environment variable
had many entries.  Somehow the executables I was creating required
strange dlls to run.  Since you, like me, probably don't want exes
that require dlls from Oracle's jre distribution, eliminate the
problem in the first place by getting rid of any extra path entries.


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Customize the variables at the top of the make file

Look at the top of the make file and set the variables as
appropriate.  There should be a better way to do this than hardwired
values, but right now there isn't.


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Build Chicken

make -f Makefile.mingw chicken.exe

After you build it try running chicken.exe against an scm file.  It
should produce a c file if everything worked out ok.


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Build CSI

make -f Makfile.mingw csi.exe

Try it out!

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Build CSC

make -f Makefile.mingw csc.exe

Try it out with csc foo.scm bar.scm.


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Issues


*** I can build chicken to use a shared library and it works fine, but it
    creates a huge exe.  I don't really know what I'm doing, so if anyone
    has any ideas I would be glad to hear them. 

    The -DPIC option does not work at all and cannot be used.  There
    is probably something basic wrong here but I don't know what it
    is.

    Gcc knows about file extensions so if you use unusual file
    extensions like .obj or .obs gcc doesn't link the dlls and exes.
    Somebody who knows more about gnu C developement could probably
    fix this problem in 5 minutes.

*** The method that csc.scm uses to obtain tool locations is unusual.
    It would be nice if it read a config file or used environment
    variables instead.


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TO DO

*** Move all location specific variables to the batch file and have
    make use those.

*** Get csc building as appropriate with sed creating csc

*** Modify csc so that it does not rely on hard-coded paths.

*** Figure out what's wrong with the dll builds.  Why are they so big?

*** What is the signifigance of --export-dynamic?

*** Update the command part of this doc to match the batch file.

*** Figure out quoted_cflags in the csc.scm target.

*** Note that we need gunzip for chicken-setup

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Changes

*** Changed csc.scm.in
    Line 185 
      (define default-library-files '("%libdir%/libchicken.a"))
      (define default-library-files '("%staticlibfiles%"))
    Line 529 
      Removed -fPIC and -DPIC