Re: Compiling with MPFR - documentation

[arnold]

Hi.

Thanks for the bug report. I will get to this.

Arnold

Peter Lindgren <ogswd-awk@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I have been periodically compiling the latest gawk from git on a Raspberry
> Pi (under Raspberry Pi OS which is basically Debian with a custom look and
> feel), but I only recently realized that I wasn't getting MPFR support.
> 
> I googled and read the manual and looked around and wondered how to get
> it. There's a good bit in the manual about what it is, and what you can
> do with it, and how to tell if it's there, but I couldn't find anything
> about how to get it. Make option? Configure option? 
> 
> Eventually, I just guessed that gawk might use it if it were present. So
> I did some more flailing about to determine which packages to install
> (like searching for "debian buster mpfr package"), assuming I would need
> the development packages, and I eventually did this :
> 
> sudo apt install libgmp-dev libmpfr-dev
>
> I then git pulled and rebuilt gawk as always and voila! The MPFR and
> GMP support was there. 
> 
> After the fact, I found this article by Arnold Robbins: 
> https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/gnu-awk-41-teaching-old-bird-some-new-tricks-part-ii
> which stated it clearly: 
>
> "This is an optional feature: if you have the MPFR and GMP libraries
> installed when you configure and build gawk, gawk automatically will
> be able to use them."
> 
> Enhancement request: that this clear statement and which packages to
> install gets added to the manual. 
>
> P.S: I really like the 5^4^3^2 example.