Make bootstrap fails on Windows: 2003-04-17

Make bootstrap fails on Windows: 2003-04-17

[Ben Key]

Make bootstrap currently fails on Windows when using msvc.  The last time I
did a successful make bootstrap was on 2003-04-10.

The error generated is as follows:

<error_details>
        "D:\emacs-src\head\lisp/../bin/emacs.exe" -batch --no-init-file
--no-site-file --multibyte -l autoload  --eval "(setq find-fil
e-hooks nil  find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings t
generated-autoload-file  \"D:/emacs-src/head/lisp/loaddefs.el\")"  -f
batch-upda
te-autoloads D:/emacs-src/head/lisp  calc  calendar  emacs-lisp  emulation
eshell  gnus  international  language  mail  mh-e  net  ob
solete  play  progmodes  term  textmodes  toolbar
Cannot open doc string file "d:/emacs-src/head/etc/DOC"
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '"D:\emacs-src\head\lisp/../bin/emacs.exe"' :
return code '0xffffffff'
Stop.
NMAKE : fatal error U1077: '"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual
Studio\VC98\bin\NMAKE.EXE"' : return code '0x2'
Stop.
</error_details>

The error is occurring the first time emacs.exe is called.

It appears that a recent change caused emacs.exe to be unable to run
successfully if etc/DOC does not exist.  This is a serious problem.  etc/DOC
cannot be generated until the ELisp files have been compiled.  This cannot
happen without running emacs.exe.  Thus we have a circular dependency
problem, emacs cannot run without etc/DOC and etc/DOC cannot be generated
unless emacs.exe is first called to byte compile the ELisp files.

I do not have the time at the moment to resolve this issue.