[M3devel] my status on win32
Randy Coleburn
rcoleburn at scires.com
Fri Jan 18 23:53:45 CET 2008
Jay:
What does "buildglobal" mean? How is it different from "buildship"?
As far as "scripts" go, I'm an old guy that started out with computers
that had real core memory. When the IBM PC revolution hit, I was
already a professional and had mastered large computers with network
operating systems and even micro-computers with CP/M. I learned DOS and
became a good "BAT" batch file programmer (we didn't call them scripting
languages back then). I'm still pretty good with Windows CMD files, but
have not tackled python.
My vote for cm3 on Windows is to avoid making the end user (customer)
have to learn or acquire things that aren't native to his environment.
Thus, I would argue for use of CMD files on Windows instead of some
other scripting language. This same reasoning is why I was pushing for
the all-in-one installation program for cm3 on Windows. If all a
"Windows person" has to do to get cm3 modula-3 up and running on his box
is to run an install program and possibly tweak a few CMD scripts to
his/her liking, then it is "easy". Forcing acquisition and installation
of other tools/environments just to get started makes things complicated
and increases the barrier to startup and acceptance. Just my 2 cents
worth.
A few years ago, I contributed some BAT/CMD files that could be used to
build the entire system on Windows. The only issue is that as the
system evolves, you have to keep the package build order up to date. I
don't mind trying to help out further in this area.
You seem to be very technically capable, so perhaps what I can offer
pales in comparison. Thanks for all you are doing. Let me know if/how
I can help.
Regards,
Randy
>>> Jay <jayk123 at hotmail.com> 1/18/2008 4:50 PM >>>
I'll see about adding usage statements.
Basically all the do* scripts accept a "command" and a list of
packages.
The commands are:
realclean
clean -- pretty useless imho
buildlocal -- the default
ship
buildship -- build and shpi
buildglobal
The .sh and .py have a usage explaining this but .cmd is missing it,
probably because I didn't fully understand at the time the functionality
of the code I was blindy porting.
do-* except for do-pkg have an implied list of packages. Maybe you can
add to it, would have to check the source.
do-pkg requires a list.
Most of the rest are not meant to be user-callable -- sysinfo, pkginfo,
pkgcmds.
make-dist its its own thing.
Oh, right -- environment variables. Many things are overridable with
them, and need documentation the same.
What do folks think of deleting all of scripts\win and having only
scripts\python?
I guess you have to try them out first, at least.
Scripts\python achieves parity pretty much, except for the more logging
to files, less logging to the console, that win\make-dist has.
Furthermore, out on a limb, what do folks think of deleting most of
scripts\*.sh and having just Python?
I doubt this will fly and I will try resist mentioning it often. :)
In the interest of consensus here, though I doubt it will help, I'd be
open to rewriting python in Perl, or possiby even Tcl.
I am also willing/interested in discussing the merits of these
languages, or an as yet undeveloped one "ideal language" (Modula-3 I
don't think is it, sorry), but probably most people will find it a waste
of time. Where is the geek-out-really-badly mailing list? :)
- Jay
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:58:36 -0500
From: rcoleburn at scires.com
To: m3devel at elegosoft.com; jayk123 at hotmail.com
Subject: Re: [M3devel] my status on win32
Jay:
Ok. It will be later tonight before I can try again. Thanks!
BTW, can you point me to a document/file somewhere that describes the
various options for your windows command file scripts?
I did experiment further with using the do-cm3-std.cmd and was finally
able to get most everything to build, but of course this doesn't rebuild
the compiler and core. Had problems with mentor and m3zume not wanting
to build/run, so I commented these out in the cmd file to get it to
work. Then I had trouble because everything was built with overrides by
default, so I had to mess around with changing parameters and rebuilding
clean.
I've tried building some of my programs and, of course, have run into a
few problems due to changes in the system. I've overcome most of these,
but I am seeing some strange behavior:
1. pixmaps aren't rendered properly on the screen. They look really
bad. I recall having this problem a while back with one of the early
5.x releases, so I guess it was never solved. I've got some old test
programs I try to dig out and see if I can find out what is going on. I
seem to recall that building standalone in the past seemed to fix the
problem, so this is a real mystery.
2. I'm having trouble with bundles not returning all of the data. In
the "reactor" program, bundles are used to provide input to the web
browser for the page source. I'm seeing cases where not all of the HTML
source is making it to the browser. Not sure if this is an I/O problem
(maybe buffers not flushed) or if it is something else. It may be that
this problem has some impact on #1 above because pixmaps are sometimes
stored in the bundles.
For the above #1 and #2, these things worked properly on cm3 v4.1. I
have the sources to 4.1, so maybe I can use them to figure out what is
wrong.
On a side note, I found and fixed a major bug in the "reactor" program,
so that is good.
Now, for another topic that we should probably move to a new email
thread: Back in the early days, my company paid Critical Mass, Inc., to
customize the Trestle/FormsVBT look and feel to more closely resemble
Windows. I have the sources for this work, but of course it is based on
v4.1 and the repository code has moved on since then. I am curious if
anyone would be interested in me trying to integrate these
customizations back into the current source tree, perhaps on a different
branch? If we go this route, I may need a little refresher tutorial on
the use of branches in CVS. We would want to make it so that the main
branch and the customized branch could evolve in sync. That is, if a
bug was found in either branch, the fix should be incorporated into
both.
Regards,
Randy
>>> Jay <jayk123 at hotmail.com> 1/18/2008 10:32 AM >>>
Randy, please try with an updated m3-sys/cm3/src/version.quake and
report back, thanks.
I understand why I wasn't seeing this.
- Jay
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:24:34 -0500
From: rcoleburn at scires.com
To: m3devel at elegosoft.com; jayk123 at hotmail.com
Subject: Re: [M3devel] my status on win32
Jay:
Not sure I've clued in to all of your dialog. Sorry.
I have in the past used a free tool to build an installer package and I
was thinking of using it again. Since the tool is free, we could put
all the work I do into the CVS repository so that others could also
maintain it.
What I am looking to achieve is to have a way where a "normal" Windows
user could download a program, run it, and have all of the cm3 packages
installed without having to use the MIN distribution to build it up or
any other tools to get the sources (like cvs). You could achieve the
same thing by having a big ZIP file also I suppose, but having the
installer would also let us easily put something in the start menu to
launch a command line with all the environment variables set properly
via automatic call to vcvars et al. When I get "Reactor" working, it
too could be put into the start menu. That just makes it fit in better
with the Windows user culture I think.
The reason I wanted to rebuild everything is two-fold:
1) ensure it can be done (i.e., test for "Broken #1"), and
2) get all of the rest of the packages built so I could then use cm3 to
build "reactor" and my own programs and test them to see if there are
any "Broken #2" issues. The MIN distribution is really insufficient to
do much of anything except to build the rest of the packages you need.
My understanding is that I needed to use CVS to get the current sources,
because if I went back to the source archive, it was old and known to be
Broken #1 on Windows.
I'm glad that you believe the current "Broken #1" situation is easy to
fix. Let me know what to do and I'll give it another try.
My experience in the past has been that there are 3 conditions to
getting cm3 to work properly on windows after it has been installed:
1) make sure your environment variables are set up by vcvars to point
to the compiler/linker/libraries (of course if you used a non-Microsoft
C compiler/linker you would need to use something other than vcvars);
2) make sure cm3.cfg has the right paths in place to find all the
libraries and tools using DOS style short names (no embedded spaces);
and
3) make sure C:\cm3\bin is in your path.
Of these, #2 & #3 are essentially one-time events, and #1 can be set up
by a invoking a batch/command file via a shortcut, so no big deal for
me. You could even make #1 a one-time event by modifying the
system-level (vice user-level) environment variables. The old
cm3install program seemed to do a decent job of #2 for me.
Also, I've noted some of your past dialog about accepting either '/' or
'\' as a path separator. I'm sure you are aware that on Windows '/' is
used often for switches (arguments). Plus Windows also allows spaces to
be embedded in the command line, so whatever solution you propose needs
to take into account that a valid command line might look like this:
C:\My Program Folder\My Program.exe /myArg1 /myArg2
In some situations, this command line would have to be quoted and
rendered as:
"C:\My Program Folder\My Program.exe" /myArg1 /myArg2
and in places where the backslash is an escape character, I've seen
"C:\\My Program Folder\\My Program.exe" /myArg1 /myArg2
Alas, I seem to have rambled a bit also. Sorry.
The immediate need for me now is to solve the Broken #1 condition, so
please let me know how to fix it and proceed.
Regards,
Randy
>>> Jay <jayk123 at hotmail.com> 1/16/2008 10:28 AM >>>
Randy, yes and no and clarifications.
I mention starting with 5.1.6 as a "worst" or "worse" case.
The earlier you start, the harder things are -- for me, to ensure it
will work.
If you merely start with my 5.5.0, well, what are you rebuilding from
source for?
Heck, you can use any binary distribution, 4.1, 5.1.6, and just use it.
They should work.
The n steps you/I give are really actually geared for people who WANT
to build from source, it is not what people HAVE to do.
As well there have been can be source distributions, to cut out CVS.
I'll look into the datefn stuff shortly.
As to the installer, well, again, yes and no.
The need for the installer is very small. All you have to do today is
unzip the .zip somewhere and set the path, and possibly the vcvars
thing. That's it. I should..now that you are "pressuring" me for ease of
use, teach cm3 about the various Þvenvdir%, %vcinstalldir% variables,
etc. That way as long as the user installed the tools, even if they
elected not to change path/lib/include, cm3 can find the compiler and
linker. I know everyone wants to preserve the flexibility of
quake/cm3.cfg but...besides, cm3 can be pretty darn smart here. IF
cm3.cfg defines SYSTEM_CC, leave things along (NT386 cm3.cfg does not
today do that). However if there is now SYSTEM_CC and there is no
cl.exe/link.exe in %PATH%, it could go on a quick hunt for them. On the
lib and include part, well, the dependency on %include% might only be
for errno..maybe not worth it. It has been whatever it is forever, like
int* _errno(void); #define errno (*_errno)()). Modula-3 engages in
rampant header cloning and CErrnoC was only introduced where that was
deemed more fragile than usual, and for Windows it probably wasn't
actually fragile -- the fragility, if I may be so rudely judgemental, is
because so many other systems are so Johnny-come-lately to arriving at
the obviously correct threading model that Windows has had all along
(since Win95/NT, can't say anything good about Win3.1; I think OS/2
might have had it correct all along too.). Funny, everyone has FINALLY
arrived at the correct threading model, only to have start changing
again, since the number of cores and machines is set to be much greater
than anticipated, the obvious threading model has been deemed too
difficult for anyone to use (Win32, Modula-3, Java, .NET, Python, all
the same supposedly too difficult model btw), and so some new one is
needed, and well, truthfully, the difficulty is not just for dummies on
relatively small multiproc boxes not having simple race conditions, the
problem is scaling way way up.
Sorry that was my usual tangential.
Even the unzip and set path would benefit slightly from a GUI
installer.
I believe there is some easy thing you can do where you write your GUI
installer and you put it in the .zip and then you prepend the GUI self
extracting .zip/.exe stub, and you can tell it to run a particular
command after the extraction.
I guess you might use a fancier thing though?
That is, are you going to, say, write a gui installer from scratch in
Modula-3? It might be a fun exercise. :)
And then you could build the self extracting prefix from source etc.
This is the hard way I guess, but more interesing.
If you can build an msi or use InstallShield or Wix or something, go
ahead.
If you use widely availabe free as in beer tools, that can be rolled
into whatever automation there is to produce distributions, keeping it
up to date shouldn't be a problem.
I do have to bring up some annoying questions:
1) Does anyone besides me have the capacity to produce distributions?
i.e.: Any Win32 machines left at Elego?
2) I know I ramble. So one of my many tangents/questions went
unanswered.
Say, in the absence of a gui installer, should .zips/.tar.bz files look
like
cm3-min-<version>/bin/cm3
or
bin/cm3
or
cm3/bin/cm3
The last one is more directly usable. The first one is very common.
This reminds me though Randy, the distribution I made available was
"min", so yeah, like if you are doing any gui programming, using any
"standard" library besides m3core or libm3, you'd need to build more
from source.
I can readily provide you a "std" distribution though.
It's "always" been a "problem" to make my files available -- no web
site hosting for me -- but recently that wasn't a problem, someone
picked the files out of ~jkrell on birch and put them on the web site.
Good.
One more thing -- Olaf, please confirm repeat yourself, 'cause I admit
I wasn't sure it was the right thing, but if you insist, ok. "std"
should be "all"? I should not continue to imagine there is a new larger
group called "all"? And wherever things are missing from std but do
build ok, add them?
m3cc should be in std?
(I admit some big indecisiveness around m3cc. It is far and away the
longest thing to build and so the one you really want to skip the most
and leave out of whatever package group. I also wonder if on Windows,
there should be some check where if sh is not in the $PATH, just
silently skip m3cc? You only need MingWin to build what I have on my
system for NT386GNU, except you also need msys just for m3cc. msys is
actually quite small, like only 20 files..)
Oh, sorry, yet another question.
The non-gcc backend is excluded from the build on systems that use the
gcc backend.
For minimization, that is appropriate.
For maximizing cross build capability, it is wrong.
The packages build fine. I suspect they work.
I am not a user of cross build capability yet, so I don't really care.
(What I do for NT386/NT386GNU /might/ be considered sort of a cross
build, but it is different/easier).
They are small packages.
- Jay
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:25:49 -0500
From: rcoleburn at scires.com
To: m3devel at elegosoft.com; jayk123 at hotmail.com
Subject: Re: [M3devel] my status on win32
Jay:
There is no line in the m3makefile dealing with datefn, so I added the
whole statement just before the line
include("version.quake")
Now, I get an error saying that the variable datefn is not defined.
If you change to put quotes around datefn in the include statement, you
get an error saying it can't open the file.
You made a reference in one of your earlier posts about trying 5.1.6 or
4.1, but note that I started with your cm3-min-WIN32-NT386-d5.5.0.zip ,
not the 5.1.6 or 4.1 versions. Thus, using d5.5.0 as a base, I am
trying to run your "upgrade.cmd" to rebuild the sources I checked out
from CVS. Since this doesn't work "out-of-the-box", again I say this
fits into the "Broken #1" category.
If I can get this to work, I don't mind putting together a Windows
installer program that will install the whole thing. That way, folks
won't have to install cygwin just to get CVS so that they can install a
working cm3. Folks will need to install the free Microsoft Visual C as
a prerequisite, but then that's not too bad. Having an installer
program would make cm3 more friendly to Windows folks. The current
16-step method is too laborious and error-prone for the person just
getting started and they will not give cm3 a second try.
As the cm3 system evolves and new releases are made, we will need to
keep the installer program up-to-date and I don't mind doing that.
After someone gets familiar with cm3 they might want to delve into some
of the scripts for rebuilding the system, but until then, I think the
installer program is the way to go.
Regards,
Randy
>>> Jay <jayk123 at hotmail.com> 1/16/2008 1:01 AM >>>
I think I see the problem.
in cm3\src\m3makefile, make this change
> if not defined("NOW")
include(datefn)
> end
datefn is only created if certain other variables aren't defined, and
do-pkg defines them.
I don't know why I don't see this. Later.
Could be that the Python scripts have a typo and don't define them.
I've been using them more than cmd.
If the host is NT, "NOW" is either gotten from an updated cm3.exe, or
left to "not available".
So the initial cm3 built from older cm3 can't report when it was
built, but cm3 built from current cm3 can.
I need to change that:
1) to be a function for niceness
2) to make it that way for Posix, for any host
but I haven't been using Posix as much lately so not testing it.
- Jay
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:55:39 -0500
From: rcoleburn at scires.com
To: m3devel at elegosoft.com; jayk123 at hotmail.com
Subject: RE: my status on win32
Jay:
In the file version.quake, I made the following edit:
changed line: local datefn = "../" & TARGET & ".datenow"
to: local datefn = ".." & SL & TARGET & ".datenow"
This change has the effect of putting a backward slash in the pathname
instead of a forward slash, so we get
C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3\src\..\NT386.datenow
So from that perspective, the change seems good.
Unfortunately, I still get the error that this file can't be opened.
A quick check of C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3\NT386 shows that the
file .datenow does not exist.
Regards,
Randy
>>> Jay <jayk123 at hotmail.com> 1/15/2008 11:03 PM >>>
That's not too bad really.
1) I'd recommend putting cm3 at the start of the path instead of the
end.
2) Just comment out the offending code to make progress. It's not
critical.
>> C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3\src\../NT386.datenow
The code is:
C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3\src\version.quake or such, included
by cm3\src\m3makefile.
Does the file exist?
Does version.quake use "/" or "SL"? If it uses "/", try replacing with
SL (and ampersand for string concat).
Could be that a newer binary distributions works better with forward
slashes.
> 4.
> 5.
> 6. Launch cygwin from desktop icon.
Cygwin is only needed for cvs, I think you realize.
Could you send me offline the result of just running "set" after
running vcvarsall?
I'd like to adapt pylib.py to it maybe.
(I can start from 5.1.6 and will try 4.1 at some point.)
- Jay
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:52:59 -0500
From: rcoleburn at scires.com
To: m3devel at elegosoft.com; jayk123 at hotmail.com
Subject: my status on win32
Jay et al:
I've listed below the steps I've undertaken to try and build the
current sources on Windows XP.
I've also attached a text file showing the output I got when trying to
build everything using Jay's upgrade.cmd script.
Unfortunately, I'm getting a build error (see below).
Please advise on how to resolve.
STEPS I TOOK:
=========
1. Download Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition All-in-One
.ISO file and burn to DVD.
http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/
2. Install Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition from DVD.
3. Use "Microsoft Update" service to check for updates / service
packs.
4. Download cygwin setup program from
http://cygwin.com/
5. Ran cygwin setup.exe program to install cygwin for all users.
Under "Devel" category, make certain to select "cvs" for
installation.
6. Launch cygwin from desktop icon.
7. In cygwin command shell window, execute following two commands,
making sure to give email as password when prompted for login:
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous at modula3.elegosoft.com:/usr/cvs login
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous at modula3.elegosoft.com:/usr/cvs checkout
cm3
8. Moved resulting C:\cygwin\home\rcoleburn\cm3 to
C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree
Note that you should replace "rcoleburn" above with your Windows
login username.
9. Download cm3-min-WIN32-NT386-d5.5.0.zip and
cm3-min-WIN32-NT386-d5.5.0-symbols.zip from
http://modula3.elegosoft.com/cm3/download.html
10. Unzipped cm3-min-WIN32-NT386-d5.5.0.zip and stored resulting cm3
folder at C:\cm3
11. Unzipped cm3-min-WIN32-NT386-d5.5.0-symbols.zip and stored
resulting symbols folder at C:\cm3\symbols
12. Launch Windows Command Prompt shell. The following steps represent
commands executed within this shell.
13. path %path%;c:\cm3\bin
14. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat"
15. cd C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\scripts\win
16. upgrade.cmd
ERROR I'M GETTING:
=============
=== package C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3 ===
+++ "cm3 -build -DROOT=C:\\CM3_CVS_SourceTree
-DCM3_VERSION_TEXT=d5.5.1 -DCM3_V
ERSION_NUMBER=050501 -DCM3_LAST_CHANGED=2007-12-30 && cm3 -ship
-DROOT=C:\\CM3_C
VS_SourceTree -DCM3_VERSION_TEXT=d5.5.1 -DCM3_VERSION_NUMBER=050501
-DCM3_LAST_C
HANGED=2007-12-30" +++
--- building in NT386 ---
ignoring ..\src\m3overrides
"C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3\src\version.quake", line 136: quake
runtime er
ror: unable to open
"C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3\src\../NT386.datenow" for
reading
--procedure-- -line- -file---
include -- <builtin>
version_impl 136
C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3\src\version.quake
include_dir 20 C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3\src\m3makefile
8
C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3\NT386\m3make.args
Fatal Error: package build failed
ERROR: "cm3 -build -DROOT=C:\\CM3_CVS_SourceTree
-DCM3_VERSION_TEXT=d5.5.1 -DCM
3_VERSION_NUMBER=050501 -DCM3_LAST_CHANGED=2007-12-30 && cm3 -ship
-DROOT=C:\\CM
3_CVS_SourceTree -DCM3_VERSION_TEXT=d5.5.1 -DCM3_VERSION_NUMBER=050501
-DCM3_LAS
T_CHANGED=2007-12-30"
ERROR: cd C:\CM3_CVS_SourceTree\m3-sys\cm3
ERROR: set INSTALLROOT=c:\cm3
Regards,
Randy
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