orbitcpp on cygwin HOWTO

[Nick Glencross <nickg glencros demon co uk>]

Folks,

I've managed to get orbitcpp compiling on cygwin, which I'm sure others 
would be interested in. The only real problem is with the IDL compiler 
backend, as from what I can see cygwin won't allow C++ modules (because 
libstdc++ is a static library, and you can't build shared libraries on 
cygwin against static libraries).

This solution is hacky, I know! Basically we'll link the backend 
statically into orbit-idl-2 (which assumes we just have the one backend)

 1. Download orbitcpp and compile the IDL compiler backend, which will 
be a static archive.

 2. Go to the cygwin setup tool, and choose to download the source for 
ORBit2.

 3. Patch the ORBit source code in /usr/src (patch -p0 < 
ORBit2-2.x.x-x.patch, without which it segfaults during compilation) and 
run configure.

 4. Edit ORBit's src/idl-compiler/orbit-idl-backend.c and in 
orbit_idl_backend_output() and change:

        paths = ...
        ...
        ...
        if (!func) {
        ...
        }

    to be:

        func = &orbit_idl_backend_func;

  5. Adjust src/idl-compiler/Makefile so that the line with 
ORBIT_IDL_LIBS also has 
/usr/lib/orbit-2.0/idl-backends/libORBit-idl-backend-cpp.a.

  6. Now compile up ORBit's IDL compiler, and just copy orbit-idl-2.exe 
to /usr/bin.

  7. Go back to orbitcpp and finish the full compile, which should run 
through correctly. There may be problems with -lrevolv's not finding the 
library, but just remove these from the Makefile, and perhaps also from 
/lib/pkgconfig/*.pc and /usr/lib/*.la.

  8. Pat yourself on the back.

I'm still having a problem with some of the supplied examples which I 
may post a backtrace of at a later point. I've certainly had CORBA 
examples working, so the principle is sound.

Cheers!

Nick