HOWTO Build MSYS

TODO: Convert to MediaWiki syntax

Prerequisites

working MSYS build environment, see HOWTO Create an MSYS Build Environment [1].

Configure and make

The MSYS build process is designed to be run in separate build directory. MSYS source root is msys/rt/src (this is where ${PATH_TO_MSYS_SRC} bellow should point).
Build is done from within empty build directory in the MSYS build environment executing:

W32API_LIB=/lib/w32api
W32API_INC=/include/w32api
OPTFL="-fno-unit-at-a-time"
export CFLAGS="-O3 -g ${OPTFL}"
export LDFLAGS="-L${W32API_LIB}"
export CXXFLAGS="-O3 -g ${OPTFL}"
export CPPFLAGS="-I${W32API_INC}"
export W32API_LDFLAGS="-L${W32API_LIB}"
export W32API_CPPFLAGS="-I${W32API_INC}"
${PATH_TO_MSYS_SRC}/configure && make

Troubleshooting

'mingw32-gcc: command not found' or 'mingw32-g++: command not found' or : If this happens then the configure went wrong, and the files in the ./winsup/utils are trying to be built. Do the following so that configure doesn't try to use mingw32-gcc/mingw32-g++:

# make distclean
# $ cat <<_ACEOF >/bin/mingw32-gcc
#> #! /bin/sh
#> echo "command not available"
#> _ACEOF

Rerun configure and make

The other solution is to install MinGW (which contains mingw32-gcc and mingw32-g++). It is preferable to install it in your /mingw directory. Please remember *not* to install MinGW and MSYS in the *same* directory !

'configure: error: ./configure failed for cygwin': you configured in the source directory, something that you shouldn't have done. Run a 'make distclean' and read the section above about how to configure correctly.

make just outputs :

make: Entering directory `/src/msys/rt/build/etc'
make: Nothing to be done for `all'.
make: Leaving directory `/src/msys/rt/build/etc'

You're probably under MINGW and not MSYS, enter MSYS (the window title should read "MSYS:some path")

Debugging, Tracing, etc

Building a debuggable MSYS dynamic library
When debugging it is often usefull to not optimize the binary output as optimization tends to change the debugging information. Add "-O0 -g -fnative-struct -DDEBUGGING=1 -DTRACING=1" to OPTFL variable above and rerun.

Installing debug version of library

Easiest way to test debug version of msys-1.0.dll is to copy MSYS instalation (default C:\msys\1.0) elsewhere and replace msys-1.0.dll with the one just built.

Regression testing |

  Unfortunately I haven't kept up with the dejagnu testing that was already present in Cygwin.  One of the reasons is that I'm not setup to execute dejagnu.  I do have separate regression tests I use to check the pathing code.  I need to add these to the CVS source so that others may use them.

Tracing |

  When you build MSYS a program is created in the <top_build_dir>/i686-pc-msys/winsup/utils directory named strace.exe.  Copy this program to the /bin directory, assuming you're debugging the CVS version of MSYS or a <nowiki>1.0.11</nowiki> or later release.  You can then use strace to see the debugging output from the program.  There is a lot of debugging information so be sure to specify an output file.  Start the debug session like so, ``strace -o /tmp/strace.out foo''.  You can use your production version of MSYS to ``tail -f /tmp/strace.out | less'' to watch the output.  You may also use sysinternals dbgview to see the debug output.

Stack walking |

  If you stack dump you will need to determine where in the code you've actually aborted.  One of the methods I use is to create an output file of using objdump with the -S and -s switches.  I then use gvim to view and find the addresses within the stack frame.