Re: Using Objective-C with gcc 3.2 on RH 8.0

[Nicola Pero]

> 1. It would be helpful to know what libraries, headers, etc. each step 
> generates, and where they're placed.

Anything belonging to gnustep is placed inside /usr/GNUstep/.  In
particular, gnustep-make and gnustep-base.

 
> 2. Is gnustep-objc required or not? What is it for?

It is recommended if you have an old compiler.  You can ignore it I think,
as you're using a recent RedHat.  Just don't spend time installing it.  
You might even be downgrading your objc library if you do :-)


> 3. Is there a way to configure the build to generate static library files 
> (.a, not .so)? I'm building on one machine, but deploying on another that 
> doesn't have GNUstep. By just using Foundation objects, I should be okay as 
> long as I link against a static libgnustep-base.a library, right?

Not necessarily.  gnustep-base needs some resources which are inside
/usr/GNUstep to work (for example, files describing character sets, or
timezones), so this might be somewhat confusing and complicated.

My personal suggestion would be to deploy gnustep on the other machine as
well.  A simple way of doing it would be to just make a .tar.gz archive of
/usr/GNUstep, and copy it over to the other machine - assuming the other
machine has got the same operating system and libraries.

If you are confident enough with building from sources, it takes a few
minutes to actually configure/build/install ffcall, gnustep-make and
gnustep-base on the other machine as well.

A better way for binary distribution is building an rpm, which is not
difficult, something like

export RPM_TOPDIR=/usr/src/redhat
make rpm

inside gnustep-make should make it (the rpm should appear in
/usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/).  then install the rpm, source the
configuration script, and build an rpm for gnustep-base in the same way.

Then you can install on the other machine using the rpms you generated.


> 4. A non-GUI example makefile & program would be useful! I don't know what 
> libraries I need to link against, what headers & includes to use, and what 
> options to use on gcc. I'll try to proceed nonetheless.

Check the first tutorial at 

http://www.gnustep.it/nicola/Tutorials/

the one about 'writing gnustep makefiles'.

Using gnustep makefiles is really recommended.