Paul Smith wrote in
<https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2018-04/msg00038.html>:
> first, GNU make provides a
> bootstrapping script that will let you compile make on systems which
> don't already have make... that means that I need to be able to build
> all these extra files without the assistance of automake (I do run
> configure). I'm not sure how easy that will be.
To cope for this case, I would suggest to generate a "build all at once"
script from the generated Makefiles and config.status.
The user would then
- run "./configure --disable-dependency-tracking"
- execute the "build all at once" script generator,
- execute the resulting script.
The output of "make -n" on the GNU make directory is quite simple.
In the case of make-4.2.1, it is:
$ make -n
[lots of automake junk]
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o ar.o
ar.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
arscan.o arscan.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
commands.o commands.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
default.o default.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o dir.o
dir.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
expand.o expand.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
file.o file.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
function.o function.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
getopt.o getopt.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
getopt1.o getopt1.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
guile.o guile.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
implicit.o implicit.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o job.o
job.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
load.o load.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
loadapi.o loadapi.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
main.o main.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
misc.o misc.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
posixos.o posixos.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
output.o output.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
read.o read.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
remake.o remake.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
rule.o rule.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
signame.o signame.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
strcache.o strcache.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
variable.o variable.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
version.o version.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
vpath.o vpath.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
hash.o hash.c
gcc -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -DLIBDIR=\"/usr/local/lib\"
-DINCLUDEDIR=\"/usr/local/include\" -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -g -O2 -c -o
remote-stub.o remote-stub.c
rm -f make
gcc -g -O2 -Wl,--export-dynamic -o make ar.o arscan.o commands.o default.o
dir.o expand.o file.o function.o getopt.o getopt1.o guile.o implicit.o job.o
load.o loadapi.o main.o misc.o posixos.o output.o read.o remake.o rule.o
signame.o strcache.o variable.o version.o vpath.o hash.o remote-stub.o -ldl
[a bit more of automake junk]
So really this job can be done in a shell script that
- extracts the relevant file lists from config.status and the Makefiles
- uses them to write out the gcc commands in a loop.
> More worrying, GNU make is compile-able on Windows and does not require
> Cygwin: it can be built using native MSVC and/or MingW32. For
> bootstrapping GNU make provides a "build_w32.bat" file that compiles
> make using either gcc or MSVC. In this setup I have a hard-coded
> config.h for Windows that I install since I don't run configure.
> Making this work with the many packages added to lib seems complex.
This approach with "build_w32.bat" is outdated. The modern approach is
to use the Autoconf and Automake generated configure and Makefile.in
files without modifications.
More in detail: About ca. 10 years ago, Automake started to include
wrapper scripts (shell scripts) that make the MSVC compiler and archiver
('cl' and 'lib') be usable with the usual command-line options of a
'cc' and 'ar' program. From this point on, compilation for MSVC could
be done with just a Cygwin or MSYS build environment (that includes
bash, coreutils, grep, sed, and make).
The advantages for the package maintainer are big:
- No more need to care about two different build systems
(automake on one side, nmake on the other side).
- No more need to write .bat files. Shell scripts are universally
executable.
- In some places, no more need to worry about slash vs. backslash
as directory name separator.
The person who builds Windows binaries has more effort, though:
- Need use install and get familiar with Cygwin or MSYS first.
- Build times are higher, because of the wrapper script invocations
(but this is mitigated by the faster machines that we have today).
This approach is described in detail in
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gettext.git;a=blob;f=INSTALL.windows
You can copy this file literally to other packages (I use the same file in
gperf, gettext, libunistring, libffcall, etc.).
> Finally, GNU make can also be compiled on other less common
> architectures, such as VMS and these ports are quite active.
I would suggest that these maintainers of these ports follow the approach
described above for Windows:
- Package a build environment with bash, grep, sed, make, that can be
easily installed.
- Create wrapper scripts for 'cc' and 'ar'.
Really, no one has time to maintain a 'Makefile.vms' like I did for some
time for GNU gperf:
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gperf.git;a=blob;f=Makefile.vms
You really want to reduce the number of redundant Makefiles you have to
maintain to 1, as soon as possible.
Bruno
