[Gcl-devel] Building Maxima - GCL on Windows (mingw)

[Vadim V. Zhytnikov]

Hi!

I'm trying to build latest Maxima CVS with
(also latest CVS gcl 2.6.1) on mingw and observe
some quite strange problem.  After compiling something
about 15 or 20 source lisp files make stops with
the following error message:
=======================================================
;          "C:/msys/1.0/home/vadim/maxima/src/numerical/slatec/dbsi1e.lisp"
Compiling C:/msys/1.0/home/vadim/maxima/src/numerical/slatec/dbsi1e.lisp.
End of Pass 1.
End of Pass 2.
OPTIMIZE levels: Safety=0 (No runtime error checking), Space=0, Speed=3
Finished compiling binary-gcl/numerical/slatec/dbsi1e.o.

;        - Loading binary file "binary-gcl/numerical/slatec/dbsi1e.o"
Loading binary-gcl/numerical/slatec/dbsi1e.o
start address -T 1049e230 Finished loading 
binary-gcl/numerical/slatec/dbsi1e.o

;        - Source file not found. Not compiling file
;      "C:/msys/1.0/home/vadim/maxima/src/C:/msys/1.0/home/vadim/maxima
          /src/j/numerical/slatec/dbesi0.lisp"
;        - Source file
;      C:/msys/1.0/home/vadim/maxima/src/C:/msys/1.0/home/vadim/maxima
         /src/j/numerical/slatec/dbesi0.lisp
;          and binary file binary-gcl/numerical/slatec/dbesi0.o not 
found, not
;          loading.
Source file 
"C:/msys/1.0/home/vadim/maxima/src/C:/msys/1.0/home/vadim/maxima/src/j/numerical/slatec/dbesi0.lisp" 
and binary file "binary-gcl/numerical/slatec/dbesi0.o" do not exist.

Fast links are on: do (use-fast-links nil) for debugging
Broken at WHEN.  Type :H for Help.
 1 (Continue) Continue, ignoring missing files.
 2 (Abort) Return to top level.
dbl:>>

=======================================================
The the error is in the path where make looks for source file
...../maxima/src/j/numerical/slatec/dbesi0.lisp
              ^^^^^^^
This strange behavior is a bit erratic. In fixed conditions
it is 100% reproducible at the same place.  But it is enough to
change something slightly (e.g. exactly the same GCL version
but now _with_ readline support) and make stops on other source
file and spurious /j/ becomes /l/ or /5/ or something else.
After first make failure one can start make once again -
it will compile some more source files and stops once again.
5-6 make runs either complete Maxima build or always stops
on some source file.  I'm not sure yet who is the real troublemaker
gcl 2.6.1, defsystem, or some mingw peculiarity but problem
disappears if I replace defsystem by older version (Maxima CVS
of May 2003 or earlier).

Now about maxima.bat file which is supposed to run Maxima
on Windows.  I just committed some changes to maxima.bat.in
which removes excessive "" and ''.  After this change
maxima.bat works fine on Windows XP and probably 2000
(I'm not sure about Windows NT 4).  Unfortunately it
doesn't work on Windows 9X/Me out of the box.

1) On Win 9X/Me default command interpreter environment
size is quite small and is not enough to run maxima.bat.
The only workaround I know - create shortcut (.pif file)
which allows indicate larger environment size for
Maxima command file.

2) make install creates maxima.bat file with UNIX
EOL (in spite of the fact that maxima.bat.in has
DOS end-of-lines).  Win 9X/Me command interpreter
doesn't understand such files.

3) And finally on Win 9X/Me it is strictly necessary
to have prefix with backslashes in the path
according to Windows convention - c:\maxima
It seems that Win XP/2K command interpreter
can cope with c:/maxima but Win 9X/Me not.


--
     Vadim V. Zhytnikov

      <address@hidden>
     <address@hidden>