lynx-dev Building Lynx2-8-4 - when did complicated/undebuggable "configure" scripts become the norm?

[Malcolm Boekhoff]

The question asked by this posting is: "Why isn't Lynx linking?".

I am trying to build Lynx on NT4 with Cygwin (using bash), but, as usual when 
things don't go quite right, I need to find out which
one of the 200 command-line "configure" arguments I need.

Why can't we have just have a makefile instead of having to create the makefile 
from a 16000 line shell script that is pretty much
un-debuggable?

I am using the following command:

    configure --build=CYGWIN --target=WIN32 --with-screen=ncurses --with-zlib 
--disable-full-paths --with-ssl --enable-externs; make

but when it gets to the linking phase, it moans about things like "stdscr" and 
"LINES" not being defined (these are defined in
libncurses.a).

An "strace" of the command line below reveals that /usr/lib/libncurses.a 
appears to be being searched:

  176 18575015 [main] ld 85 fhandler_base::lseek: lseek 
(/usr/lib/libncurses.dll.a, 15360, 0)

I know that "LINES" *is* defined in my /usr/lib/libncurses.a because:

    Tue Feb 27-09:51:39 /lynx2-8-4/src 531$ nm --defined /usr/lib/libncurses.a 
| grep LINES
    00000004 D _LINES
x
The link line looks like this:

gcc  -DHAVE_CONFIG_H  -DLOCALEDIR=\"/usr/local/share/locale\" -I. -I.. 
-Ichrtrans -I./chrtrans -I.. -I../src -I../WWW/Library/Implem
entation   -O2   -o lynx.exe  LYClean.o LYShowInfo.o LYEdit.o LYStrings.o 
LYMail.o HTAlert.o GridText.o LYGetFile.o LYMain.o
LYMainLoop.o LYCurses.o LYBookmark.o LYUtils.o LYOptions.o LYReadCFG.o 
LYSearch.o LYHistory.o LYForms.o LYPrint.o LYrcFile.o
LYDownload.o LYNews.o LYKeymap.o HTML.o HTFWriter.o HTInit.o DefaultStyle.o 
LYUpload.o LYLeaks.o LYexit.o LYJump.o LYList.o LYCgi.o
LYTraversal.o LYEditmap.o LYCharSets.o LYCharUtils.o LYMap.o LYCookie.o 
LYStyle.o LYHash.o LYPrettySrc.o TRSTable.o UCdomap.o
UCAux.o UCAuto.o  LYExtern.o LYLocal.o -lncurses 
../WWW/Library/Implementation/libwww.a -lz -lssl -lcrypto -lssl -luser32

I have tried adding putting "-L/lib" in various places in the command line 
(even though I shouldn't need to do this) but I still get
"LINES" among other items from libncurses.a being undefined.

The output from the above command is:

Tue Feb 27-09:39:51 /lynx2-8-4/src 512$ sh /tmp/1.sh
Reading specs from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-cygwin/2.95.2-6/specs
gcc version 2.95.2-6 19991024 (cygwin experimental)
 /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-cygwin/2.95.2-6/collect2.exe -Bdynamic -o lynx.exe 
/usr/lib/crt0.o -L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-cygwin/2.95.
2-6 -L/usr/lib/mingw LYClean.o LYShowInfo.o LYEdit.o LYStrings.o LYMail.o 
HTAlert.o GridText.o LYGetFile.o LYMain.o LYMainLoop.o LYC
urses.o LYBookmark.o LYUtils.o LYOptions.o LYReadCFG.o LYSearch.o LYHistory.o 
LYForms.o LYPrint.o LYrcFile.o LYDownload.o LYNews.o L
YKeymap.o HTML.o HTFWriter.o HTInit.o DefaultStyle.o LYUpload.o LYLeaks.o 
LYexit.o LYJump.o LYList.o LYCgi.o LYTraversal.o LYEditmap
.o LYCharSets.o LYCharUtils.o LYMap.o LYCookie.o LYStyle.o LYHash.o 
LYPrettySrc.o TRSTable.o UCdomap.o UCAux.o UCAuto.o LYExtern.o L
YLocal.o -lncurses ../WWW/Library/Implementation/libwww.a -lz -lssl -lcrypto 
-lssl -luser32 -lgcc -lcygwin -luser32 -lkernel32 -ladv
api32 -lshell32 -lgcc
LYStrings.o(.text+0xa84):LYStrings.c: undefined reference to `strnames'
LYStrings.o(.text+0xa9b):LYStrings.c: undefined reference to `strfnames'
LYStrings.o(.text+0xab0):LYStrings.c: undefined reference to `cur_term'
LYStrings.o(.text+0x3e89):LYStrings.c: undefined reference to `acs_map'
LYStrings.o(.text+0x3eb8):LYStrings.c: undefined reference to `acs_map'
GridText.o(.text+0xdc5):GridText.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
GridText.o(.text+0xdd9):GridText.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
GridText.o(.text+0x107f):GridText.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
GridText.o(.text+0x1f43):GridText.c: undefined reference to `curscr'
GridText.o(.text+0x10cab):GridText.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
GridText.o(.text+0x10d9b):GridText.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
GridText.o(.text+0x10dcf):GridText.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
GridText.o(.text+0x10fa9):GridText.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
LYMainLoop.o(.text+0xdad1):LYMainLoop.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
LYMainLoop.o(.text+0xdb30):LYMainLoop.c: more undefined references to `stdscr' 
follow
LYCurses.o(.text+0x8e0):LYCurses.c: undefined reference to `LINES'
LYCurses.o(.text+0x8f8):LYCurses.c: undefined reference to `COLS'
LYCurses.o(.text+0x981):LYCurses.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
LYCurses.o(.text+0x9e0):LYCurses.c: undefined reference to `curscr'
LYCurses.o(.text+0xa04):LYCurses.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
LYCurses.o(.text+0xa18):LYCurses.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
LYCurses.o(.text+0xa2c):LYCurses.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
LYCurses.o(.text+0xa40):LYCurses.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
LYCurses.o(.text+0xa54):LYCurses.c: undefined reference to `stdscr'
LYCurses.o(.text+0xa68):LYCurses.c: more undefined references to `stdscr' follow
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status





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