bug#59744: 30.0.50; package-vc can't build info file on windows/MSYS2

bug#59744: 30.0.50; package-vc can't build info file on windows/MSYS2

[pRoMMMModE]

To build info file one need makeinfo executable, on windows the makeinfo
from MSYS2 is a perl script, therefore not recognized as executable. When
trying to build info files `package-vc--build-documentation' will throw a
"Permission Denied" error.

There are makeinfo.exe provide by MinGW/MSYS/GnuWin project, but those
binaries haven't got a update since 2010...I suggest modify
`package-vc--build-documentation` a bit so that when makeinfo is in the
PATH but not a executatble, run (call-process "perl" nil t
nil "makeinfo"...) instead.

In GNU Emacs 30.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2022-11-29 built
  on LILILILILILILIL
Repository revision: 7939184f8e0370e7a3397d492812c6d202c2a193
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.19044
System Description: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (v10.0.2009.19044.2251)

Configured using:
  'configure --without-dbus --with-modules --without-pop
  --with-tree-sitter
  PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/mingw64/lib/pkgconfig:/mingw64/share/pkgconfig'

Configured features:
ACL GIF GMP GNUTLS HARFBUZZ JPEG JSON LCMS2 LIBXML2 MODULES NOTIFY
W32NOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SOUND SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER WEBP XPM ZLIB

Important settings:
   value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
   locale-coding-system: cp936

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
   tooltip-mode: t
   global-eldoc-mode: t
   eldoc-mode: t
   show-paren-mode: t
   electric-indent-mode: t
   mouse-wheel-mode: t
   tool-bar-mode: t
   menu-bar-mode: t
   file-name-shadow-mode: t
   global-font-lock-mode: t
   font-lock-mode: t
   blink-cursor-mode: t
   line-number-mode: t
   indent-tabs-mode: t
   transient-mark-mode: t
   auto-composition-mode: t
   auto-encryption-mode: t
   auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message mailcap yank-media puny dired
dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg rfc6068
epg-config gnus-util text-property-search time-date subr-x mm-decode
mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader
cl-loaddefs cl-lib sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util
mail-prsvr mail-utils rmc iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc paren electric
uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel dos-w32
ls-lisp disp-table term/w32-win w32-win w32-vars term/common-win
tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace
newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar
rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock
font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer nadvice seq
simple cl-generic indonesian philippine cham georgian utf-8-lang
misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms
cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian
cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript charprop case-table
epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure cl-preloaded button
loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window
text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule
custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote threads
w32notify w32 lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 39707 8148)
  (symbols 48 5180 0)
  (strings 32 14551 1414)
  (string-bytes 1 386877)
  (vectors 16 10194)
  (vector-slots 8 153089 13584)
  (floats 8 23 39)
  (intervals 56 263 0)
  (buffers 992 11))

bug#59744: 30.0.50; package-vc can't build info file on windows/MSYS2

[Eli Zaretskii]

tags 59744 wontfix
thanks

> Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2022 23:01:34 +0800
> From: pRoMMMModE@outlook.com
> 
> To build info file one need makeinfo executable, on windows the makeinfo
> from MSYS2 is a perl script, therefore not recognized as executable. When
> trying to build info files `package-vc--build-documentation' will throw a
> "Permission Denied" error.
> 
> There are makeinfo.exe provide by MinGW/MSYS/GnuWin project, but those
> binaries haven't got a update since 2010...I suggest modify
> `package-vc--build-documentation` a bit so that when makeinfo is in the
> PATH but not a executatble, run (call-process "perl" nil t
> nil "makeinfo"...) instead.

I don't like this solution.  The root cause is that apparently MSYS2 doesn't
provide a functional native Windows port of Texinfo that works outside of
MSYS2 Bash.  It is not hard to provide such a port, and the proof is here:

  https://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/texinfo-6.8-3-w32-bin.zip/download

So if MSYS2 folks don't get their act together soon, you may wish trying the
above port, which works for me on MS-Windows very well without any problems
(and I build Emacs all the time, as you may guess).  It is a 32-bit port,
not a 64-bit port, but I don't think this should matter for your purposes.

(And if you must have the latest Texinfo 7 instead of 6.8, just wait for a
few days.)

But tweaking Emacs because of this is IMNSHO a kludge, especially since a
simple solution is already available.  So I don't think we should do this.

bug#59744: 30.0.50; package-vc can't build info file on windows/MSYS2

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2022 12:01:11 +0800
> From: pRoMMMModE@outlook.com
> 
> Thanks, ezwinports works fine, I'll use it for now, meanwhile I will 
> file a bug to MSYS2 ask if they can add a makeinfo.bat.

Please note that they don't need to _add_ makeinfo.bat, they just need to
have it in the binary distro.  makeinfo.bat (and a couple of other Windows
batch files) are part of Texinfo sources, I added them to the upstream
Texinfo many years ago.  What MSYS2 folks need to do is to provide a mingw
port of Texinfo, not an MSYS2 port, and then "make install" will install the
batch files.