Re: Cygwin Compilation

[Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org>]

Hi, Scott!

> Has anyone been able to compile 4.5.55 for Cygwin?  I keep getting a warning
> that GLIB support is not found, but is required.  I cannot seem to build
> GLIB 1.2.10 either.  Additionally, GLIB documentation says we should not be
> using GLIB 1.2.x on Win32, but should build a more current version.  MC
> documentation says nothing else will work.  Help?  :-)

Actually, glib 1.2.10 compiles quite straightforward under the current
Cygwin (1.3.2).  The only problem is a useless external declaration in
gstrfuncs.c that conflicts with with the libc headers.

Here's the trivial patch:

---------------------
--- gstrfuncs.c
+++ gstrfuncs.c
@@ -702,7 +702,6 @@ g_strsignal (gint signum)
   char *msg;

 #ifdef HAVE_STRSIGNAL
-  extern char *strsignal (int sig);
   return strsignal (signum);
 #elif NO_SYS_SIGLIST
   switch (signum)
---------------------

Since you didn't provide the information about your problems with glib I
suppose that it was your problem and you just didn't try to fix it.

I compiled MC 4.5.55 for the current (as of August 23) Cygwin with glib
1.2.10.  It compiles, but it doesn't work well.

Both the editor and the viewer display warnings.  The viewer is trying to
run nm on every file, the editor doesn't like something in the Syntax
file.  My guess is that the regex function doesn't work well.

Maybe MC should use external regex on Cygwin or we should update
src/regex.c.

I considered support for glib-1.3.x, but it requires support for
pkgconfig.  Unfortunately, pkgconfig is a beta (at least) software.  The
latest version I was able to find is 0.7.0.  It lacks any documentation
except the manpage.  Even the NEWS file is empty.  It also integrates
glib-1.2.8 for some obscure reason.

I would be glad to add pkgconfig if it were better documented.  I tried to
add the PKG_CHECK_MODULES macro as described in README, but it seems that
pkgconfig should be installed on the system that builds MC.  This is a new
requirement.  Users with glib-1.2.x and without pkgconfig won't be able to
compile MC.

I don't think it's a good idea to use pkgconfig if doing so creates a
strict dependency on beta quality software for all operating systems where
MC is compiled.

I'd like to be proven wrong.  Any comments will be appreciated.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin