[PolyORB-users] Can't configure PolyOrb using MSYS and/or Cygwin on WinXP

[Marcelo Freitas]

"Bob Duff" <duff at adacore.com> wrote:
> Rob Groen wrote:
> 
>> I have a WinXP SP3 Pro system with both MSYS and Cygwin installed.. For 
>> the Ada environment I am using GNAT GPL 2008
>> 
>> On MSYS the ./configure complains about not having the Ada compiler 
>> installed (it can find the Gnatchop utility in proper directory, that is 
>> the same as the one where the ada compiler resides...)
> 
> Cygwin is required, in order to build PolyORB from sources on windows.

actually I managed to build PolyORB 2.4 with MSYS. I had only to downgrade
make as the newest one has some bugs (I can't send you the exact version
because I'm on vacation and I compiled it at work)

>> On Cygwin I had 2 go's, first after downloading the standard Cygwin 
>> config it complaint that :
>> it could not find /lib/cpp. So I ran the Cygwin setup again, checked the 
>> C++ compiler packages in the dev branch and ran the whole thing again.
>> Now under Cygwin it can't find the Ada compiler either, It can find 
>> Gnatchop...
>> Setting the symbol ADA to the patch where the Ada compiler is 
>> (ADA=/GNAT/GPL/bin/gcc in my case) did not help. Adding a .exe suffix to 
>> the symbol string did not make any difference
> 
> Sounds like a problem with your path.  Make sure to follow the
instructions in
> the PolyORB User's Guide.

maybe PATH was the same issue with your MSYS setup. Just add c:/gnat to be
mounted at /gnat using your /etc/fstab  (just open it with your favourite
unix text editor and you'll understand how to do it) and do:

export PATH=/gnat/2008/bin:$PATH

in your bash. Then you'll be good to go. (I believe it's the right path but
I'm not sure).

But remember make will fail with the lastest version. You will need an older
one (I don't remember which one).


Also, some ./configure option fails (I think it has to do with the CORBA
services). First try with the default settings (you're completelly free to
play with the --prefix=/somepath option because it's working perfectly).

> 
>> Pls, help!
>> 
>> (BTW using this kind of installing (./configure, make etc, that do not 
>> seem to be working in a standard out-of-the-box way) in a MSWindows 
>> world is not helping to spread the use of Ada and related tools. Is a 
>> setup like the one used for the GNAT GPL suite not much better?)
> 
> Yes, you're right.  Windows users are used to having an automatic
installer to
> install a pre-built binary package.  We are currently working on providing
> such
> a thing.  So the windows install should be easier in the future.

Not only that. GNAT GPL is built using mingw. As PolyORB depends on GNAT,
the least one would expect is that it's also supported with the main mingw
distribution. Requiring cygwin to build could be considered an ugly hack.
Having something that builds easily on windows (meaning, requiring only the
tools AdaCore provide or maybe the ones provide by mingw project) would be
the best.


I'm not saying it's an easy task. I'm having some problems doing so in
AdaWorks project ( www.adaworks.net/adaworks :: which is going to be renamed
anytime soon) and I realized it's a lot easier to provide pre-build packages
trown in some default folder with the proper .gpr filles in one default
place. But I do thing it'd help spread Ada all over the world. I believe the
.jar thing is Java is one of the things that makes it one of the most used
languages. Having a simillar approach ("just put it there and it works")
with Ada will really easy thing for newcomers (yeah, I know... a "little
bit" offtopic.. sry.. I couldn't help myself).