[Axiom-developer] RE: system::getenv does not return MSYS environment variables

[Page, Bill]

On December 7, 2004 2:58 AM I wrote:

>...
> it seems that (system::getenv "AXIOM") also returns
> NIL. I think that is wrong!

Ok, I said to myself: Why don't I give it a Windows AXIOM
environment variable using

  Start/Control Panel/System/Advanced/Environment Variable

My first attempt was to add

  AXIOM  c:\cvs\head\axiom\mnt\windows

Sure enough when I got into AXIOMsys (BOOT>) the result
I got from

  (|getEnv| "AXIOM")

was  c:\\cvs\\head\\axiom\\mnt\\windows

Well, that was almost ok, so I decided to change the
Windows environment variable to

  AXIOM  c:/cvs/head/axiom/mnt/windows

even though that is technically not a path in Windows. Note:
By experiment last week I discovered that this is actually
the format of the environment variable that works with Mike
Thomas's current binary version of AXIOM to get it to run
on windows if it is not located where it was originally built.

This now looks good in (|getEnv| "AXIOM") so I decided to
try make again. I was confused that in spite of setting the
AXIOM variable in Windows, I still had to set it again in
MSYS. The environment variables are copied but but the format
was wrong for the Axiom make. It expects the "MSYS" format

  export AXIOM=/c/cvs/head/axiom/mnt/windows

and the PATH set as usual. In spite of setting AXIOM in
MSYS like this, (|getEnv| "AXIOM") still returns the value
as set in Windows not MSYS!

Now when I do make instead of "syntax error" in the log I see:

'rm' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'sort' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

----
Better.

Could this be a problem with GCL (or somewhere in Axiom)
not using the .exe extension needed by windows? Both rm.exe
and sort.exe do exist in /bin

A quick grep shows that sort and rm occur in br-data.boot and
br-saturn.boot

Finally, I decide to set the Windows AXIOM environment variable
to

  AXIOM  /c/cvs/head/axiom/mnt/windows

(and restart MSYS)

Now the the make ends in

   Loading c:/cvs/head/axiom/mnt/windows/autoload/br-saturn.
 
   >> System error:
   Cannot rename the file #P"libdb.text" to #P"olibdb.text".

protected-symbol-warn called with (NIL)

-------

libdb.text also occurs in br-saturn.boot

I think that is an improvement. At this point I think a
'make clean' and start again is in order since I now seem
to at least have the AXIOM environment variable properly
set.

I think the in GCL on windows this weirdness concerning
Windows environment variables versus MSYS environment
variables (needed during the build at least) may have to
be more carefully thought out.

Regards,
Bill Page.