FW: MS compiler 7.1 (Visual Studio .NET 7.1 and DDK 2003) issues with make 3.80

[Jerker Bäck]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jerker Bäck [mailto:address@hidden 
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2005 4:49 PM
To: 'Eli Zaretskii'
Subject: RE: MS compiler 7.1 (Visual Studio .NET 7.1 and DDK 2003) issues
with make 3.80

Hello Eli

> That's good to hear, but it would be even better if you could run the 
> Make test suite and see whether all the tests pass (and debug those 
> which don't, if any).

I did, I didn't want to mention this but none of my tested windows port did
successfully go through the test. It could be something wrong with my Cygwin
installtion. Ports tested: Cygwin make 3.80 (may2003), msys make 3.79.1,
moztools gmake 3.79.1, my own build. Best was Cygwin with only 1 error,
moztools didn't succeed any test at all, my own build had 6 errors. There's
really no point to discuss these result because I'm not really sure I have a
fully functional unix emulation. I'm working on a Perl script debug
environment in Visual Studio, but I'm not really sure how to do it. But, of
course! I could debug the make.exe while doing the test! Fine, I will try
that. I will also try doing the test in Interix. Also, maybe the beta2 can
make it all way.

> ... I suggest that you send a detailed report which shows every 
> problem, analyzes its cause(s) and ...

I'm working on a bug report

> The GNU project (of which Make is an important
> part) cannot be blamed for preferring the GNU C compiler, which is 
> Free Software and is available on Windows as well.

No

_MSC_EXTENSIONS
> Also, it seems that __STDC__ is used in Make mainly to turn on and off 
> the use of function prototypes.  So even if we cannot find a way to 
> force the MS compiler to behave the way we want, it will only miss the 
> additional diagnostics caused by possible mismatches in declaration vs 
> use of functions, which doesn't sound like a catastrophe.  (But I do 
> agree that it's better to find a way of using the prototypes.)

Equivalents for __STDC__
_MSC_EXTENSIONS       ms, intel
__STDC_VERSION__      intel
­__BORLANDC__          borland

Compiler version
__INTEL_COMPILER       intel
_MSC_VER               ms, intel(1200)

This is a common problem. You will find the same issue in many crossplatform
projects. A very ambitious solution is made by the zlib developers.

I wonder, who needs these prototypes anyway, surely they must be expressed
in the runtime header files? Would it not be easier to turn the other way
around and define prototypes for those who really need it?

> Can you post the URL of this tool suite?
There is no longer a download site - only CD "Current DDK" order free CD -
Windows 2003 SP1 <http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/ddk/default.mspx>
This CD contains a fully optimizing compiler, linker, assembler and other
tools, C runtime library, C++ library, Win32 base headers, low level headers
for kernel and hardware, and libs for all. For building GUI apps using
DirectX, COM, .NET ... you need to complement with high level SDK's like
Platform SDK, DirectX SDK, .NET framework etc for a complete Windows
environment <http://msdn.microsoft.com/>. However, there is no IDE or editor
- you need Visual Studio for that. 

For integration into Visual Studio (or any other IDE) you might want to look
here: <http://www.hollistech.com/Resources/ddkbuild/ddkbuild.htm>

Note: It is not my intention to advertise Microsoft products but for
crossplatform or generic projects I have found that the DDK is an excellent
platform. Often overlooked and unknown by most. There are build environments
for Windows 2000, XP and 2003 included on the CD. Unless you are building
drivers, it is enough just to pick one of your choice.

Note: There should be no problem using the tool via WINE.

Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 - also free
http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/default.aspx

Kind regards Jerker Bäck