Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Francis Litterio]

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When I try to build CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW (following the
instructions in emacs/nt/INSTALL, of course), I get this error during
"make bootstrap":

   Generating autoloads for language/vietnamese.el...
   Scan error: "Unbalanced parentheses", 3917, 3960
   mingw32-make[1]: *** [autoloads] Error 255
   mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `c:/franl/cvs/emacs/lisp'
   mingw32-make: *** [bootstrap-gmake] Error 2

If I remove the multibyte characters from vietnamese.el, I get past the
above error but then I get a series of byte-compiler errors:

   Compiling gnus/legacy-gnus-agent.el

   In toplevel form:
   gnus/legacy-gnus-agent.el:28:1:Error: Symbol's value as variable is void: À¿À¿d

and:

   Compiling international/ja-dic-utl.el

   In toplevel form:
   ja-dic-utl.el:100:60:Warning: reference to free variable `Àõ»‹Às'
   ja-dic-utl.el:100:71:Warning: reference to free variable `À'
   ja-dic-utl.el:100:76:Warning: reference to free variable `ÀK'
   ja-dic-utl.el:100:82:Warning: reference to free variable
       `ÀÀÀÀÀõ€“‡'
   ja-dic-utl.el:100:103:Error: Invalid read syntax: ")"

Does anyone else see this?

I'm configuring the sources with this command:

   ./configure.bat --prefix="c:/apps/emacs-cvs" --with-gcc --no-cygwin --without-xpm --without-png --without-jpeg --without-tiff --without-gif

and I have the MinGW bin directory ahead of my Cygwin bin directory in
my PATH.
--
Fran

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eric Hanchrow]

This sounds depressingly similar to the problem I reported here:

        http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/100565

I never got a solution to it, although my message started a flame war.
I _did_ come up with a tolerable workaround, though: I build emacs _on
Linux_, with "make dist"; that byte-compiles the .el files, and the
resulting tarball built just fine on Vista.  That might work for you,
too, since your problem (like mine) appears to be in the byte
compilation.

-- 
When it comes to electronic voting, most liberals are just plain
old-fashioned nuts.
        -- Joe Andrew, former chairman of the Democratic National
           Committee

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Eric Hanchrow <offby1@blarg.net>
> Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:05:08 -0700
> 
> This sounds depressingly similar to the problem I reported here:
> 
>         http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/100565
> 
> I never got a solution to it, although my message started a flame war.

The _real_ problem is not the flame war, but the fact that you and
Francis are so far the only ones who see these failures.  Quite a few
people, including myself, use MinGW to build the CVS all the time, and
this problem never happened to us.

Your report was about Vista, so I thought it was specific to that OS,
to which I have no easy access.  Francis had this on XP, which is an
important piece of new information.  So I'm now wondering what is
special on your two machines that causes these failures.

Here are a few questions, for starters:

 . What are your development tools and their versions?  Please include
   version information about MinGW itself (from its header files), w32
   API package, versions of GCC, Binutils, any sh.exe you may have
   installed, Make, and the cp.exe and rm.exe used for the build.

 . Do you use any Cygwin or MSYS tools for the build, and if so, what
   are they?

 . Does the problem happen in byte compiling _any_ file, or just with
   some?  If the latter, please list a dozen files that have this
   problem and post the corresponding error messages.

 . Is the byte-compiling problem still there after you build Emacs
   using *.elc files produced on another system or by another version
   of Emacs?

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Ivan Kanis]

Francis Litterio <flitterio@gmail.com> writes:

> When I try to build CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW (following the
> instructions in emacs/nt/INSTALL, of course), I get this error during
> "make bootstrap":
>
>    Generating autoloads for language/vietnamese.el...
>    Scan error: "Unbalanced parentheses", 3917, 3960
>    mingw32-make[1]: *** [autoloads] Error 255
>    mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `c:/franl/cvs/emacs/lisp'
>    mingw32-make: *** [bootstrap-gmake] Error 2

Funny, I saw that error today on XP and with MinGW, yesterday. I
removed the file and it crapped much, much later on european.el.
-- 
Ivan
http://kanis.fr

The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but the transference of bones
from one graveyard to another.
    -- Frank J. Dobie 

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Ivan Kanis <expire-by-2008-08-27@kanis.fr>
> Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:42:44 +0200
> 
> > When I try to build CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW (following the
> > instructions in emacs/nt/INSTALL, of course), I get this error during
> > "make bootstrap":
> >
> >    Generating autoloads for language/vietnamese.el...
> >    Scan error: "Unbalanced parentheses", 3917, 3960
> >    mingw32-make[1]: *** [autoloads] Error 255
> >    mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `c:/franl/cvs/emacs/lisp'
> >    mingw32-make: *** [bootstrap-gmake] Error 2
> 
> Funny, I saw that error today on XP and with MinGW, yesterday. I
> removed the file and it crapped much, much later on european.el.

Which file did you remove?

Also, please consider answering the questions about your system I
asked earlier in this thread.

Thanks.

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:05:46 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Here are a few questions, for starters:
> 
>  . What are your development tools and their versions?  Please include
>    version information about MinGW itself (from its header files), w32
>    API package, versions of GCC, Binutils, any sh.exe you may have
>    installed, Make, and the cp.exe and rm.exe used for the build.
> 
>  . Do you use any Cygwin or MSYS tools for the build, and if so, what
>    are they?
> 
>  . Does the problem happen in byte compiling _any_ file, or just with
>    some?  If the latter, please list a dozen files that have this
>    problem and post the corresponding error messages.
> 
>  . Is the byte-compiling problem still there after you build Emacs
>    using *.elc files produced on another system or by another version
>    of Emacs?

And another one:

 . What are the most important non-standard packages installed on your
   system?  Any anti-virus programs, per chance?

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Francis Litterio]

Ivan Kanis wrote:

> Francis Litterio writes:
>
>> When I try to build CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW (following the
>> instructions in emacs/nt/INSTALL, of course), I get this error during
>> "make bootstrap":
>>
>>    Generating autoloads for language/vietnamese.el...
>>    Scan error: "Unbalanced parentheses", 3917, 3960
>>    mingw32-make[1]: *** [autoloads] Error 255
>>    mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `c:/franl/cvs/emacs/lisp'
>>    mingw32-make: *** [bootstrap-gmake] Error 2
>
> Funny, I saw that error today on XP and with MinGW, yesterday. I
> removed the file and it crapped much, much later on european.el.

Me too.  In my case, the make proceeds past the byte-compiler errors,
but finally dies with:

   mingw32-make[1]: *** No rule to make target `../lisp/language/european.elc', needed by `DOC'.  Stop.
   mingw32-make: *** [bootstrap-gmake] Error 2

which is simply fallout from an earlier byte-compiler error for
european.el:

   Compiling language/european.el

   In toplevel form:
   language/european.el:237:1:Error: Invalid read syntax: ". in wrong context"

I will put together the info that Eli has requested as soon as possible
and post it to this list.
--
Fran

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Ivan Kanis]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Ivan Kanis <expire-by-2008-08-27@kanis.fr>
>> Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:42:44 +0200
>> 
>> > When I try to build CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW (following the
>> > instructions in emacs/nt/INSTALL, of course), I get this error during
>> > "make bootstrap":
>> >
>> >    Generating autoloads for language/vietnamese.el...
>> >    Scan error: "Unbalanced parentheses", 3917, 3960
>> >    mingw32-make[1]: *** [autoloads] Error 255
>> >    mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `c:/franl/cvs/emacs/lisp'
>> >    mingw32-make: *** [bootstrap-gmake] Error 2
>> 
>> Funny, I saw that error today on XP and with MinGW, yesterday. I
>> removed the file and it crapped much, much later on european.el.
>
> Which file did you remove?

vietnamese.el, I'll let Francis collect the info for you as I am
busy. I am also using AVG anti virus version 8.0.
-- 
Ivan
http://kanis.fr

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either
charming or tedious.
    -- Oscar Wilde 

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Francis Litterio]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> From: Eric Hanchrow
>> 
>> This sounds depressingly similar to the problem I reported [...]

> The _real_ problem is not the flame war, but the fact that you and
> Francis are so far the only ones who see these failures.

I didn't realize that on two people had reported this.  I tried a build
on a machine running a recently-installed Windows XP Professional (plus
SP2), and it works!

I'll still collect the info that Eli asked for else-thread, but let me
say that the machine on which I'm having the build problems was setup by
my company's IT department, and may have been _upgraded_ from Windows
2000 instead of getting a fresh XP install.  For instance, Windows is
installed in C:\WINNT instead of C:\WINDOWS.

As well, my company's draconian firewall prevents the machine from
getting automatic updates from Microsoft.  Instead, a small subset of
updates are distributed from an internal WSUS server.

So I suspect the problematic machine has a bizarre mixture of old and
new system software on it and is incompletely patched.
--
Fran

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[dhruva]

For records sake, I am able to building GNU Emacs from savannah GIT repo using MinGW on WXP with following details:


OS Name    Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version    5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600


GCC: gcc (GCC) 4.3.0 20080305 (alpha-testing) mingw-20080502
Built using cmd as shell (not Msys and bash)

-dhruva



      Connect with friends all over the world. Get Yahoo! India Messenger at http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/?wm=n/

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Francis Litterio <flitterio@gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:27:44 -0400
> Gcc: nnfolder:sent-usenet
> 
> I'll still collect the info that Eli asked for else-thread

Thanks.

> but let me say that the machine on which I'm having the build
> problems was setup by my company's IT department, and may have been
> _upgraded_ from Windows 2000 instead of getting a fresh XP install.
> For instance, Windows is installed in C:\WINNT instead of
> C:\WINDOWS.
> 
> As well, my company's draconian firewall prevents the machine from
> getting automatic updates from Microsoft.  Instead, a small subset of
> updates are distributed from an internal WSUS server.
> 
> So I suspect the problematic machine has a bizarre mixture of old and
> new system software on it and is incompletely patched.

I don't think the level of system up-to-dateness is an issue here, at
least not in general.  One of the machines where I frequently build
CVS Emacs has updates completely turned off, and with the exception of
a couple of updates that were important to me (e.g., the DST rules in
time zones), it is the original SP2 as it was rolled out in 2003.

In any case, whatever weird thing causes these failures, I'd like to
understand how in the world it could cause Emacs fail in such a
strange way.  Some memory-related thing (e.g., insufficient memory or
maybe even a hardware-related glitch) is about my only guess at this
point.  But I'm not good at guessing these sorts of things.

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Ivan Kanis <expire-by-2008-08-27@kanis.fr>
> Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:16:28 +0200
> 
> I'll let Francis collect the info for you as I am busy.

I hope you could at least find time to skim through what Francis
reports and tell which parts are similar to your setup.  Thanks.

> I am also using AVG anti virus version 8.0.

I don't think this could be the problem, because I'm using that as
well on one of the machines where Emacs is built regularly.

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:01:55 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Some memory-related thing (e.g., insufficient memory or maybe even a
> hardware-related glitch) is about my only guess at this point.  But
> I'm not good at guessing these sorts of things.

Actually, this guess should probably be thrown away even now, as it
sounds like, when these failures happen, they happen in the same files
(vietnamese.el and european.el) on all the affected machines.  Random
memory-related problems cannot account for that.

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Juanma Barranquero]

On Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 09:07, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> Actually, this guess should probably be thrown away even now, as it
> sounds like, when these failures happen, they happen in the same files
> (vietnamese.el and european.el) on all the affected machines.

Previous cases of `Symbol's value as variable is void' during
bootstrap on Windows have often been related to CRLF issues or
problems with loaddefs*, etc.

I'd suggest making sure that the "cvs update -kb" instructions in
nt/INSTALL have been followed, and doing a "maintainer clean".

  Juanma

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[martin rudalics]

 > I'd suggest making sure that the "cvs update -kb" instructions in
 > nt/INSTALL have been followed, and doing a "maintainer clean".

I'd try with a full -kb checkout in the first place.

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Francis Litterio]

Juanma Barranquero wrote:

> Previous cases of `Symbol's value as variable is void' during
> bootstrap on Windows have often been related to CRLF issues or
> problems with loaddefs*, etc.
>
> I'd suggest making sure that the "cvs update -kb" instructions in
> nt/INSTALL have been followed, and doing a "maintainer clean".

I suspected that early-on, and I've already tried doing a full "cvs co
-kb emacs" and it had no effect on the failures.
--
Fran

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Ivan Kanis]

Hi Eli, I found some time ;)

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Here are a few questions, for starters:
>
>  . What are your development tools and their versions?  Please include
>    version information about MinGW itself (from its header files), w32
>    API package, versions of GCC, Binutils, any sh.exe you may have
>    installed, Make, and the cp.exe and rm.exe used for the build.
>
>
>
#define __MINGW32_VERSION 3.14
gcc version 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
GNU ld version 2.17.50 20060824 (from mingw)
GNU bash, version 2.04.0(1)-release (i686-pc-msys)
GNU Make 3.81 i386-pc-mingw32 (from gnuwin32)
cp (GNU coreutils) 5.3.0 (from gnuwin32)
rm (GNU coreutils) 5.3.0 (from gnuwin32)

>  . Do you use any Cygwin or MSYS tools for the build, and if so, what
>    are they?

MSYS for the shell

>  . Does the problem happen in byte compiling _any_ file, or just with
>    some?  If the latter, please list a dozen files that have this
>    problem and post the corresponding error messages.

just with vietnamese.el

>  . Is the byte-compiling problem still there after you build Emacs
>    using *.elc files produced on another system or by another version
>    of Emacs?

it compiles fine with emacs 22.2.1

I got the following errors which if fixed by compiling with emacs 22:

mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `d:/IVAN/emacs/lib-src'
mingw32-make[1]: *** No rule to make target `../lisp/language/european.elc', needed by `DOC'.  Stop.
mingw32-make: *** [all-other-dirs-gmake] Error 2

And then this at the end of the compile, emacs 22 did no help so I
remove the files from the makefile:

In toplevel form:
quail/PY.el:88:1:Error: End of file during parsing

In toplevel form:
quail/ZIRANMA.el:102:1:Error: Invalid read syntax: ") or . in a vector"

In toplevel form:
quail/CTLau.el:52:1:Error: End of file during parsing

Take care,
-- 
Ivan
http://kanis.fr

If it works, it's obsolete.
    -- Marshall McLuhan 

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Dan Nicolaescu]

Ivan Kanis <expire-by-2008-08-28@kanis.fr> writes:

  > Hi Eli, I found some time ;)
  > 
  > Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
  > 
  > > Here are a few questions, for starters:
  > >
  > >  . What are your development tools and their versions?  Please include
  > >    version information about MinGW itself (from its header files), w32
  > >    API package, versions of GCC, Binutils, any sh.exe you may have
  > >    installed, Make, and the cp.exe and rm.exe used for the build.
  > >
  > >
  > >
  > #define __MINGW32_VERSION 3.14
  > gcc version 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
  > GNU ld version 2.17.50 20060824 (from mingw)
  > GNU bash, version 2.04.0(1)-release (i686-pc-msys)
  > GNU Make 3.81 i386-pc-mingw32 (from gnuwin32)
  > cp (GNU coreutils) 5.3.0 (from gnuwin32)
  > rm (GNU coreutils) 5.3.0 (from gnuwin32)
  > 
  > >  . Do you use any Cygwin or MSYS tools for the build, and if so, what
  > >    are they?
  > 
  > MSYS for the shell
  > 
  > >  . Does the problem happen in byte compiling _any_ file, or just with
  > >    some?  If the latter, please list a dozen files that have this
  > >    problem and post the corresponding error messages.
  > 
  > just with vietnamese.el
  > 
  > >  . Is the byte-compiling problem still there after you build Emacs
  > >    using *.elc files produced on another system or by another version
  > >    of Emacs?
  > 
  > it compiles fine with emacs 22.2.1
  > 
  > I got the following errors which if fixed by compiling with emacs 22:
  > 
  > mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `d:/IVAN/emacs/lib-src'
  > mingw32-make[1]: *** No rule to make target `../lisp/language/european.elc', needed by `DOC'.  Stop.
  > mingw32-make: *** [all-other-dirs-gmake] Error 2
  > 
  > And then this at the end of the compile, emacs 22 did no help so I
  > remove the files from the makefile:
  > 
  > In toplevel form:
  > quail/PY.el:88:1:Error: End of file during parsing

Do you have the emacs/etc/charsets directory in your tree? 

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Francis Litterio <flitterio@gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:15:53 -0400
> Gcc: nnfolder:sent-usenet
> 
> I suspected that early-on, and I've already tried doing a full "cvs co
> -kb emacs" and it had no effect on the failures.

Thanks for the info.  Just to be absolutely sure we have this corner
covered: you did make that full "co -kb" in a separate directory,
right?

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Francis Litterio]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> From: Francis Litterio
>> 
>> I suspected that early-on, and I've already tried doing a full "cvs co
>> -kb emacs" and it had no effect on the failures.
>
> Thanks for the info.  Just to be absolutely sure we have this corner
> covered: you did make that full "co -kb" in a separate directory,
> right?

Yes.

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Ivan Kanis]

Francis Litterio <flitterio@gmail.com> writes:

> When I try to build CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW (following the
> instructions in emacs/nt/INSTALL, of course), I get this error during
> "make bootstrap":
>
>    Generating autoloads for language/vietnamese.el...
>    Scan error: "Unbalanced parentheses", 3917, 3960
>    mingw32-make[1]: *** [autoloads] Error 255
>    mingw32-make[1]: Leaving directory `c:/franl/cvs/emacs/lisp'
>    mingw32-make: *** [bootstrap-gmake] Error 2
>

I finally resolved the problem on my end. I was building within emacs
shell version 22.2. After unsetting the following variables I have a
successful build:

EMACSDATA
EMACSDOC
EMACSLOADPATH
EMACSPATH

I took out emacs out of the PATH environment, but I don't think it's
necessary.

Let me know if it helps...
-- 
Ivan
http://kanis.fr

vi has two modes the one in which it beeps and the one in which it
doesn't.
    -- Anonymous 

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Francis Litterio]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> Here are a few questions, for starters:

Eli,

I sat down to compose the answers to your above questions and figured I
would start by re-running my build so I could enumerate each of the .el
files that failed to compile.

... but the build succeeded!

I am utterly confused.  I cannot think of a single change to my system
that I've made in the last week.

I have now removed my source tree, checked out the source, and done a
successful "bootstrap" build _ten_ times in a row!  I can't make it
fail.

I've checked out both with and without the cvs "-kb" switch.  I'm
checking out from the same CVS server as before.  I have neither
installed nor uninstalled any software on this machine.  I'm building in
the same directory on the same disk I used when I saw the failures.  I
have not changed my PATH variable.  I have approximately the same amount
of free disk space.

Unless I can reproduce the failure, this may have to remain a mystery.
--
Fran

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Francis Litterio <flitterio@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:04:49 -0400
> 
> Unless I can reproduce the failure, this may have to remain a mystery.

Okay, thanks for trying so hard.

Eric, you are now the Last of the Mohicans on this one.  Can you still
reproduce the problem?

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eric Hanchrow]

>>>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

    Eli> Eric, you are now the Last of the Mohicans on this one.  Can
    Eli> you still reproduce the problem?

I assume you're talking to me :) I haven't had time yet at work (which
is where my Vista box lives) but will certainly give it a try when I
can.

-- 
A love for feminine frippery can be, and frequently already is,
paired with a love of laser guns.
        -- Megan McArdle

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Eric Hanchrow <erich@cozi.com>
> Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:27:40 -0700
> 
> >>>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
>     Eli> Eric, you are now the Last of the Mohicans on this one.  Can
>     Eli> you still reproduce the problem?
> 
> I assume you're talking to me :)

Yes.

> I haven't had time yet at work (which is where my Vista box lives)
> but will certainly give it a try when I can.

Thanks.

Re: Problems building CVS Emacs on Windows XP using MinGW

[Eric Hanchrow]

Sorry it took so long for me to try the build again at work, but now it
works just fine.  No idea what the problem was originally.

I was using a CVS version pulled today.

-- 
... there are any number of partisan Democrats lurking in
engineering departments and liberal moles in software-writing
offices.
        -- Molly Ivins