Building and Installing Emacs
- on Windows NT and Windows 95
+ on Windows NT and Windows 95/98/2000
-You need a compiler package to build and install Emacs on NT or Win95.
-If you don't have one, precompiled versions are available in
-ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs/<version>.
+ To compile Emacs, you will need either Microsoft Visual C++ 2.0 or
+ later, or a Windows port of GCC 2.95 or later with Mingw and W32 API
+ support and a port of GNU make. You can use the Cygwin ports of GCC,
+ but Emacs requires the Mingw headers and libraries to build.
+
+ Please see http://www.mingw.org for pointers to GCC/Mingw binaries.
Configuring:
-(1) In previous versions, you needed to edit makefile.def
- to reflect the compiler package that you are using. You should no
- longer have to do this if you have defined the INCLUDE and LIB
- environment variables, as is customary for use with Windows compilers.
- (Unless you are using MSVCNT 1.1, in which case you will need
- to set MSVCNT11 to be a non-zero value at the top of makefile.def.)
+ Configuration of Emacs is now handled by running configure.bat in the
+ nt subdirectory. It will detect which compiler you have available,
+ and generate makefiles accordingly. You can override the compiler
+ detection, and control optimization and debug settings, by specifying
+ options on the command line when invoking configure.
-(2) Choose the directory into which Emacs will be installed, and
- edit makefile.def to define INSTALL_DIR to be this directory.
- (Alternatively, if you have INSTALL_DIR set as an environment
- variable, the build process will ignore the value in makefile.def
- and use the value of the environment variable instead.) Note
- that if it is not installed in the directory in which it is built,
- the ~16 MB of lisp files will be copied into the installation directory.
+ To configure Emacs to build with GCC or MSVC, whichever is available,
+ simply change to the nt subdirectory and run `configure' with no
+ options. To see what options are available, run `configure --help'.
- Also, makefile.def is sometimes unpacked read-only; use
-
- > attrib -r makefile.def
+Building:
- to make it writable.
+ After running configure, simply run the appropriate `make' program for
+ your compiler to build Emacs. For MSVC, this is nmake; for GCC, it is
+ GNU make.
-(3) You may need to edit nt/paths.h to specify some other device
- instead of `C:'.
+ As the files are compiled, you will see some warning messages
+ declaring that some functions don't return a value, or that some data
+ conversions will be lossy, etc. You can safely ignore these messages.
+ The warnings may be fixed in the main FSF source at some point, but
+ until then we will just live with them.
-Building:
+Installing:
-(4) The target to compile the sources is "all", and is recursive starting
- one directory up. The makefiles for the NT port are in files named
- "makefile.nt". To get things started, type in this directory:
+ To install Emacs after it has compiled, simply run `make install'.
- > nmake -f makefile.nt all
+ By default, Emacs will be installed in the location where it was
+ built, but a different location can be specified either using the
+ --prefix option to configure, or by setting INSTALL_DIR when running
+ make, like so:
- or use the ebuild.bat file.
+ make install INSTALL_DIR=D:/emacs
- When the files are compiled, you will see some warning messages declaring
- that some functions don't return a value, or that some data conversions
- will be lossy, etc. You can safely ignore these messages. The warnings
- may be fixed in the main FSF source at some point, but until then we
- will just live with them.
+ The install process will run addpm to setup the registry entries, and
+ to create a Start menu icon for Emacs.
- NOTE: You should not have to edit src\paths.h to get Emacs to run
- correctly. All of the variables in src\paths.h are configured
- during start up using the nt\emacs.bat file (which gets installed
- as bin\emacs.bat -- see below).
+Trouble-shooting:
-Installing:
+ The main problems that are likely to be encountered when building
+ Emacs stem from using an old version of GCC, or old Mingw or W32 API
+ headers. Additionally, cygwin ports of GNU make may require the Emacs
+ source tree to be mounted with text!=binary, because the makefiles
+ generated by configure.bat necessarily use DOS line endings. Also,
+ cygwin ports of make must run in UNIX mode, either by specifying
+ --unix on the command line, or MAKE_MODE=UNIX in the environment.
-(5) Currently, Emacs requires a number of environment variables to be set
- for it to run correctly. A batch file, emacs.bat, is provided that
- sets these variables appropriately and then runs the executable
- (emacs.bat is generated using the definition of INSTALL_DIR in
- nt\makefile.def and the contents of nt\emacs.bat.in).
-
-(6) The install process will install the files necessary to run Emacs in
- INSTALL_DIR (which may be the directory in which it was built),
- and create a program manager/folder icon in a folder called GNU Emacs.
- From this directory, type:
-
- > nmake -f makefile.nt install
-
- or use the install.bat file.
-
-(7) Create the Emacs startup file. This file can be named either .emacs,
- as on Unix, or _emacs. Note that Emacs requires the environment
- variable HOME to be set in order for it to locate the startup file.
- HOME could be set, for example, in the System panel of the Control
- Panel on NT, or in autoexec.bat on Win95.
-
-(8) Start up Emacs.
-
- The installation process should have run the addpm.exe program, which
- does two things. First, it will create a set of registry keys that
- tell Emacs where to find its support files (lisp, info, etc.).
- Second, it will create a folder containing an icon linked to
- runemacs.exe (a wrapper program for invoking Emacs). You can
- also invoke addpm.exe by hand, giving the absolute directory name
- of the installation directory as the first argument:
-
- addpm.exe %INSTALL_DIR%
-
- Now, to run Emacs, simply click on the icon in the newly created
- folder or invoke runemacs.exe from a command prompt.
-
- Another alternative for running Emacs is to use the emacs.bat batch
- file in the bin directory (this was the traditional method of invoking
- Emacs). Edit the emacs.bat file to change the emacs_dir environment
- variable to point to the Emacs installation directory and invoke the
- emacs.bat file to run Emacs.
-
- Note that, on Win95, you are likely to get "Out of environment space"
- messages when invoking the emacs.bat batch file. The problem is that
- the console process in which the script is executed runs out of memory
- in which to set the Emacs environment variables. To get around this
- problem, create a shortcut icon to the emacs.bat script. Then right
- click on the icon and select Properties. In the dialog box that pops
- up, select the Memory tab and then change the Environment memory
- allocation from "Auto" to "1024". Close the dialog box and then
- double click on the icon to start Emacs.
+ When configure runs, it attempts to detect when GCC itself, or the
+ headers it is using, are not suitable for building Emacs. GCC version
+ 2.95 or later is needed, because that is when the Windows port gained
+ sufficient support for anonymous structs and unions to cope with some
+ definitions from winnt.h that are used by addsection.c. The W32 API
+ headers that come with Cygwin b20.1 are incomplete, and do not include
+ some definitions required by addsection.c, for instance. Also, older
+ releases of the W32 API headers from Anders Norlander contain a typo
+ in the definition of IMAGE_FIRST_SECTION in winnt.h, which
+ addsection.c relies on. Versions of w32api-xxx.zip from at least
+ 1999-11-18 onwards are okay.
Debugging:
-(9) You should be able to debug Emacs using the MSVC debugger as you would
- any other program. To ensure that Emacs uses the lisp files associated
- with the source distribution that you are debugging, it is useful
- to set the Emacs environment variables to point Emacs to the
- source distribution. You can use the debug.bat batch file in this
- directory to setup the environment and invoke msdev on the
- emacs.exe executable.
-
- Emacs functions implemented in C use a naming convention that
- reflects their names in lisp. The names of the C routines are
- the lisp names prefixed with 'F', and with dashes converted to
- underscores. For example, the function call-process is implemented
- in C by Fcall_process. Similarly, lisp variables are prefixed
- with 'V', again with dashes converted to underscores. These
- conventions enable you to easily set breakpoints or examine familiar
- lisp variables by name.
-
- Since Emacs data is often in the form of a lisp object, and the
- Lisp_Object type is difficult to examine manually in the debugger,
- Emacs provides a helper routine called debug_print that prints out
- a readable representation of a Lisp_Object. The output from
- debug_print is sent to stderr, and to the debugger via the
- OutputDebugString routine. The output sent to stderr should be
- displayed in the console window that was opened when the emacs.exe
- executable was started. The output sent to the debugger should be
- displayed in its "Debug" output window.
-
- When you are in the process of debugging Emacs and you would like
- to examine the contents of a Lisp_Object variable, popup the
- QuickWatch window (QuickWatch has an eyeglass symbol on its button
- in the toolbar). In the text field at the top of the window, enter
- debug_print(<variable>) and hit return. For example, start
- and run Emacs in the debugger until it is waiting for user input.
- Then click on the Break button in the debugger to halt execution.
- Emacs should halt in ZwUserGetMessage waiting for an input event.
- Use the Call Stack window to select the procedure w32_msp_pump
- up the call stack (see below for why you have to do this). Open
- the QuickWatch window and enter debug_print(Vexec_path). Evaluating
- this expression will then print out the contents of the lisp
- variable exec-path.
-
- If QuickWatch reports that the symbol is unknown, then check the
- call stack in the Call Stack window. If the selected frame in the
- call stack is not an Emacs procedure, then the debugger won't
- recognize Emacs symbols. Instead, select a frame that is inside
- an Emacs procedure and try using debug_print again.
-
- If QuickWatch invokes debug_print but nothing happens, then check
- the thread that is selected in the debugger. If the selected
- thread is not the last thread to run (the "current" thread), then
- it cannot be used to execute debug_print. Use the Debug menu
- to select the current thread and try using debug_print again.
- Note that the debugger halts execution (e.g., due to a breakpoint)
- in the context of the current thread, so this should only be a problem
- if you've explicitly switched threads.
+ You should be able to debug Emacs using the debugger that is
+ appropriate for the compiler you used, namely DevStudio or Windbg if
+ compiled with MSVC, or gdb if compiled with gcc.
+
+ Emacs functions implemented in C use a naming convention that reflects
+ their names in lisp. The names of the C routines are the lisp names
+ prefixed with 'F', and with dashes converted to underscores. For
+ example, the function call-process is implemented in C by
+ Fcall_process. Similarly, lisp variables are prefixed with 'V', again
+ with dashes converted to underscores. These conventions enable you to
+ easily set breakpoints or examine familiar lisp variables by name.
+
+ Since Emacs data is often in the form of a lisp object, and the
+ Lisp_Object type is difficult to examine manually in the MSVC
+ debugger, Emacs provides a helper routine called debug_print that
+ prints out a readable representation of a Lisp_Object. (If you are
+ using gdb, there is a .gdbinit file in the src directory which
+ provides definitions that are useful for examining lisp objects. The
+ following tips are mainly of interest when using MSVC.) The output
+ from debug_print is sent to stderr, and to the debugger via the
+ OutputDebugString routine. The output sent to stderr should be
+ displayed in the console window that was opened when the emacs.exe
+ executable was started. The output sent to the debugger should be
+ displayed in its "Debug" output window.
+
+ When you are in the process of debugging Emacs and you would like to
+ examine the contents of a Lisp_Object variable, popup the QuickWatch
+ window (QuickWatch has an eyeglass symbol on its button in the
+ toolbar). In the text field at the top of the window, enter
+ debug_print(<variable>) and hit return. For example, start and run
+ Emacs in the debugger until it is waiting for user input. Then click
+ on the Break button in the debugger to halt execution. Emacs should
+ halt in ZwUserGetMessage waiting for an input event. Use the Call
+ Stack window to select the procedure w32_msp_pump up the call stack
+ (see below for why you have to do this). Open the QuickWatch window
+ and enter debug_print(Vexec_path). Evaluating this expression will
+ then print out the contents of the lisp variable exec-path.
+
+ If QuickWatch reports that the symbol is unknown, then check the call
+ stack in the Call Stack window. If the selected frame in the call
+ stack is not an Emacs procedure, then the debugger won't recognize
+ Emacs symbols. Instead, select a frame that is inside an Emacs
+ procedure and try using debug_print again.
+
+ If QuickWatch invokes debug_print but nothing happens, then check the
+ thread that is selected in the debugger. If the selected thread is
+ not the last thread to run (the "current" thread), then it cannot be
+ used to execute debug_print. Use the Debug menu to select the current
+ thread and try using debug_print again. Note that the debugger halts
+ execution (e.g., due to a breakpoint) in the context of the current
+ thread, so this should only be a problem if you've explicitly switched
+ threads.
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