X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to djgpp-bounces using -f From: Radical NetSurfer Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: Autoconf tutorial Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 05:53:33 -0500 Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Organization: Velocity.Net Cache-Post-Path: web.velocity.net!unknown AT 66-211-206-171 DOT velocity DOT net X-Cache: nntpcache 3.0.1 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) Lines: 95 X-Complaints-To: abuse AT newshosting DOT com To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Didn't I mention that even with the latest version of 'which' source autoconf "hangs" while "perl" is in the dos-box menu, as I've described. Since I run DJGPP almost exclusively under Win98SE these days, I always have a LFN environment. My djgpp installation is F:\DJGPP on one machine, and another drive letter on another, etc. Since that is exactly how the Delorie url's say to do it. I may not know enough to appreciate what all the tools do, and I have a real linux box, FedoraCore2, which I wish I did get more use out of, mostly always in win98se, but I would like to see things work as others claim they do. I've done everything humanly possible, but learning that perl may have a bug, and that people are not sharing a fix does not help. I will keep your message, and print it out. Add it to my existing djgpp notebook. Thank you and it is appreciated. On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 19:09:14 +0000 (UTC), Doug Kaufman wrote: >Radical NetSurfer writes: > >>What would also be nice is if someone would please take the >>time to sit down and write out a nice little tutorial, step by step, >>of how to use Autoconf/autom4te. Theres documentation that >>comes with it sure, but it would be nice to have a "how to" or >>"introduction to" with details such as what djgpp-packages are >>needed to properly implement autoconf, which versions are >>highly recommended, and downloaded from specifically which >>ftp site, etc. Then everybody will be "on the same page" as it >>were. And we can all discover how these new tools are supposed >>to work. > >I am not sure that this would help, since the main time that you >use the tools when they might fail is in porting a program that is >not officially part of the DJGPP suite. Each of the official DJGPP >programs has generally been tweaked to compile nicely. > >That said, you generally need a matching pair of autoconf and >automake. You always need perl and frequently need libtool. You should >have recent versions of most of the other tools. > >I usually start out by saving the "aclocal.m4" file that comes >with the distribution, since some package maintainers put macro >definitions there instead of in "acinclude.m4". The first step is to >read the "install" or "installation" file to see if there are specific >instructions or problems noted. Next read a file called "problems" if >it exists. See if there is a file "install.djgpp" or "install.dos". >Look for a subdirectory that might have specific instruction. If there >are no specific installation instructions for DJGPP, generally follow >the instructions for unix. You are less likely to have trouble if you >are in an environment that supports long file names and if you use >paths in the form of /dev/c/... or /dev/env/DJDIR/... rather than in >the form of "c:/...". > >If there are no specific instructions, I would start by going to the >root of the source files and running "aclocal". You may need to addd >the "-I" option to specify directories that have macro definitions. If >the distribution uses libtool, next run "libtoolize". Many programs >use a "config.h" file. If so, you need to run "autoheader", which >creates "config.h.in". The next step is to run automake to create >all your "Makefile.in" files. You may want to run it with options >"-a --foreign". If there have been no errors, the next step is to >run "autoconf", which creates your "configure" file. Once that is >created, you can run "./configure --help" to see the specific options >available in that package. To get the program to build properly in >DJGPP, you might need to specify certain options, or set values in >the environment for "CFLAGS" and/or "CPPFLAGS". When porting a new >program, I find it helpful to keep logs of all the screen messages, so >that warnings and errors can be addressed. > >After building a program that hasn't previously been ported to DJGPP, >test it looking for problems. See if there is a test suite that might >be invoked by "make check" or "make test". > >Once you have a working program, you may want to go back and tweak the >distribution so that it still works in a 8+3 filename environment and >accepts filenames in "c:/..." or even in "c:\..." style. > >As far as other program prerequisites, autoconf just runs a series of >perl scripts. Each program may have its own specific scripts (that is >what aclocal.m4 is about). I don't know that you can predict what each >author has put into those. If something doesn't work, you need to read >the source and see what it is trying to do, then decide why it isn't >working and how to fix it. > >The above may not be elegant, but it has worked for me in porting lots >of programs to DJGPP. > Doug