Re: NT mingw/msys build problem

[Jason Rumney]

Lennart Borgman wrote:

> I do not know how make works, but I can't avoid the hang when MSYS sh.exe is
> in the path. The hang is caused by $(shell echo) in the make file. This does
> not return since it runs "cmd echo" and that starts a new shell without
> doing "echo". Actually it is bad syntax. The syntax for cmd is
>
>  CMD [/X | /Y] [/A | /U] [/Q] [[/C | /K] string]
>
> You have to supply /C or /K for the string command to be carried out. (At
> least this is the syntax on NT4 and I believe it has not changed.)
>
>  
The $(shell COMMAND) macro should provide the correct arguments. That is 
the way cygwin and mingw32 make work, msys seems to be the only broken 
one in this regard.

> I do not understand why the test is made. It seems like make has found sh
> already but it still wonders something about "shell". Why does make do that?
>  
Make should know the shell already, but the Emacs makefiles do not. They 
need to do that test to find out.

> So at the moment there is actually no other way to build Emacs on ms windows
> than using Cygwin as far as I can see.
I use mingw and cmd.exe. The key is to stay clear of msys.