Re: [Aspell-user] Building Aspell 5.0 on win32

[Kevin Atkinson]

yOn Mon, 26 Aug 2002, François Boudreau wrote:

> Hello ! I'm trying to build Aspell 5.0 using Cygwin on WinXP.
> 
> I got an error when compiling.
> 
> /cygdrive/c/aspell-0.50/common/speller.cpp:14: undefined reference to
> ...
> 
> I "fixed" that by adding these lines to speller.cpp
> #include "Config.hpp"
> #include "copy_ptr-t.hpp"

Thanks.  I apparently didn't try hard enough to avoid the problems with 
CopyPtr.  Anyway I just fixed Aspell so it will also compile with -O3

> I get another error a bit later.
> 
> g++ -g -O2 -o .libs/aspell.exe aspell.o check_funs.o checker_string.o
> ../lib/.l
> ibs/libaspell.dll.a
> /cygdrive/c/aspell-0.50/common/.libs/libaspell-common.dll.a
> -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/lib -L/usr/lib/w32api -L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-cyg
> win/
> 2.95.3-5 -lgcc -lgcc -lgcc -lgcc -lgcc -lgcc -lgcc -lgcc -lstdc++ -lgcc -lcy
> gwin
>  -luser32 -lkernel32 -ladvapi32 -lshell32 -lgcc -lcurses -L/usr/local/lib
> aspell.o: In function `config(void)':
> /cygdrive/c/aspell-0.50/prog/aspell.cpp:360: variable 'acommon::COUT' can't
> be a
> uto-imported. Please read the documentation for ld's --enable-auto-import
> for de
> tails.
> aspell.o: In function `dump(aspeller::LocalWordSet)':
> ...
> Info: resolving _aerror_conflicting_flags by linking to
> __imp__aerror_conflictin
> g_flags (auto-import)
> Info: resolving _COLS by linking to __imp__COLS (auto-import)
> Info: resolving _stdscr by linking to __imp__stdscr (auto-import)
> collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
> make[1]: *** [aspell.exe] Error 1
> make[1]: Leaving directory `/cygdrive/c/aspell-0.50/prog'
> make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

> But all I want is the C interface and at this point all the dll I need
> appear to be created. I tried the examples, they seem to work fine. So I
> don't think I will investigate more. I'm just reporting the problem.

Thats very interesting.  Could you be more specific.

Also please note that the following updated Win32 note:

Due to limited time and my general dislike for Microsoft Windows, Win32 is 
not an officially supported platform for Aspell. However, with a little 
effort, it should be possible for someone with experience with the Cgiwin 
development environment to create an Aspell binary and library (dll) using 
gcc. The library in theory should be able to be used by any Win32 compiler 
if it is compiled right, but this theory has never been tested.

If you have experience with using Cgiwin or a Unix like environment and 
are willing to maintain an Aspell binary and/or library I would be willing 
to work with you to get Aspell to compile. If you are seriously interested 
please post to address@hidden after you have given it an initial 
try. However, if, after reading this section, you do not know how to start 
then you most likely do not have the necessary experience to be able to 
get Aspell to compile. Please do not bother me with questions such as "I 
would like to use Aspell on Win32 but I have no idea what to do.", as I am 
not willing to teach you the basics of working with a Unix like 
environment.

Aspell requires Gcc 2.95 (or better) and the Cgiwin development 
environment in order to compile on Win32. Both the Cgiwin or the Mingw 
version of Gcc should work. The Mingw version of Aspell will have slightly 
less functionality, but none of which is noticeable to the end user. 
Microsoft Visual C++, however, will not work as the compiler is far to 
buggy as far as C++ compliance goes. You are more than welcome to try but 
be warned that others in the past have tried and given up.

In order to get the nice full screen interface with Mingw when spell 
checking files a curses implementation that does not require Cygwin is 
required. The PDCurses ([http://www.lightlink.com/hessling/PDCurses/]) 
implementation is known to work, other implementations may work however 
they have not been tested. See the previous section for information on 
specifying the location of the curses library and include file.

If Aspell is compiled with --enable-win32-relocatable and the bindir is 
set to the same value as prefix (ie not <<prefix>>/bin) then the Aspell 
directory (what prefix is set to) can be relocated anywhere provided that 
none of the data files are moved around within the Aspell directory. 
Please not that this feature has not been tested with GNU Aspell 0.50 so 
it may or may not work.

The default paths for Aspell are designed for a Unix system and not a 
Win32 system so you might want to specify different ones when compiling 
Aspell. Also if the HOME environmental variable is not set Aspell will 
assume it is the current working directly. This may lead to your personal 
word lists being saved in unpredictable locations. To solve this either 
compile with --enable-win32-relocatable (see above) or specify the 
complete path of the personal and replacement word lists in aspell.conf. 
If Aspell is compiled with --enable-win32-relocatable than the personal 
word lists are saved in the prefix directory and the name is changed from 
".aspell.<lang>.*" to" <lang>.*".

So.....

If you would be willing to maintain the Win32 binary and/or library I 
would appreceate it.

> Thanks for writing Aspell ! Not that I tried it much yet, but it looks very
> cool.

Your welcome.

--- 
http://kevin.atkinson.dhs.org