configure = OK but not make

[goblinrieur]

$ make
./preforth -p ".:~+:." prims2x.fs -e "c-flag on s\" prim.i\" save-mem out-filename 2! s\" "prim.b"\" ' output-c ' output-c-combined process-file bye" >engine/prim.i
make: *** [Makefile:1224 : engine/prim.i] Erreur 1
make: *** Suppression du fichier « engine/prim.i »

running on debian12 all devlibs are ok configure shows no errors so I did not try make install of course

[farvardin]

I don't know about Debian, but last year on Linux Mint 21 (equivalent to Ubuntu 22.04), I've built without problem gforth, I can't remember the version but it was around 2024-11. Now I've upgraded the computer with Mint 22 (Ubuntu 24.04) and I can no longer compile the same gforth version. The README file talks about the fact that gforth has been tested with gcc-2.95 to gcc-4.3.1 but those are very outdated versions.

I've tried to switch to gcc-7 but it was the same.

I get errors like:

test/other.fs:234:1: warning: ')' missing

in file included from *args*:3:1: 
unix/freetype_gl.fs:233:71: error: Undefined word
c-function texture_atlas_get_region texture_atlas_get_region a n n -- >>>struct<<<	( self width height -- )

I've also tried from both tarball and git, and didn't manage to compile it.

What is the recommended system (OS and gcc version) to compile gforth at the moment?

[farvardin]

trying with gcc-7 and latest gforth 20250924 I got:

@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@
 LOCAL-EXT           complete 1 
 MEMORY              complete 3 
 TOOLKIT             complete 5 
-TOOLKIT-EXT         partial  11 / 13 
+TOOLKIT-EXT         partial  12 / 13 
 SEARCH              complete 9 
 SEARCH-EXT          complete 5 
 STRING              complete 8 
make[3]: *** [Makefile:1206 : checkone] Erreur 1
make[3] : on quitte le répertoire « /tmp/gforth-0.7.9_20250924 »
make[2]: *** [Makefile:1512 : gforth-fast-ll] Erreur 2
make[2]: *** Suppression du fichier « gforth-fast-ll »
make[2] : on quitte le répertoire « /tmp/gforth-0.7.9_20250924 »
make[1]: *** [Makefile:1524 : optgforth-fast] Erreur 2
make[1] : on quitte le répertoire « /tmp/gforth-0.7.9_20250924 »
make: *** [Makefile:1512 : gforth-fast] Erreur 2
=== < Summary > ===
cow{say,think} version 3.03, (c) 1999 Tony Monroe
Usage: cowsay [-bdgpstwy] [-h] [-e eyes] [-f cowfile] 
          [-l] [-n] [-T tongue] [-W wrapcolumn] [message]

It also looks like the cowsay has changed syntax (:/):

cowsay -f dragon-and-cow -n no longer seems accepted, but I doubt it fails only for this...

[farvardin]

I've removed the -n from the cowsay command but now it only tells me that "make failed", with the error above. I've started a virtual machine with the previous version of my Linux but I can't make it compile either...

[forthy42]

The latest tarball works with the latest GCC. We update the README.md, the old README however seems to be still part of the distribution — needs to be removed.

I checked with cowsay 3.8.4, and it has dragon-and-cow. Maybe your cowsay is too old… so it needs checking for this, too?

The check warning even tells you before that you should expect this warning to show up… don't be confused. This is not an error.

expect ``.../gforth/test/other.fs:234:1: warning: ')' missing''

.../gforth/test/other.fs:234:1: warning: ')' missing

The error in freetype_gl.h looks like you have an older version of SWIG for Gforth installed. It should come out as t{*(ivec4*)} instead of the struct, which can't be processed.

[farvardin]

thank you for your answer @forthy42

for cowsay the problem wasn't with the dragon-and-cow but with the -n switch. For an unknown reason, this switch is in the help, but it doesn't work as expected (or I don't understand the syntax). I've tried from a freshly new Linux Mint installation, and there is this same bug with cowsay (which is also in outdated version 3.03).

On this new installation I've run the gforth tarball installation, also the ./install-deps.sh script, during configure it complained about a missing swig library, but anyway the compilation worked and the resulting gforth binary works fine.

back on the first computer (which has the same distribution version), I've removed the gforth 0.7.3 and installed it again and I got during the configure:

Config summary: everything fine (and nothing related to swig like on the other one)

but some errors during the compilation later:

make[3]: *** [Makefile:1206 : checkone] Erreur 1
make[3] : on quitte le répertoire « /tmp/gforth-0.7.9_20250924 »
make[2]: *** [Makefile:1512 : gforth-fast-ll-reg] Erreur 2
make[2]: *** Suppression du fichier « gforth-fast-ll-reg »
make[2] : on quitte le répertoire « /tmp/gforth-0.7.9_20250924 »
make[1]: *** [Makefile:1524 : optgforth-fast] Erreur 2
make[1] : on quitte le répertoire « /tmp/gforth-0.7.9_20250924 »

the 1512 line part in makefile is:

gforth-fast$(OPT)$(EXT): $(GFORTHOBJECTS) arch/$(machine)/machine.h
	@echo GFORTH-FAST$(OPT)$(EXT)
	if test -z "$(OPT)"; then \
		for i in $(OPTS); do $(RM) gforth-fast$${i}$(EXT); $(MAKE) DOSTRIP=$(DOSTRIP) optgforth-fast OPT=$$i && $(CP) gforth-fast$${i}$(EXT) $@ && break; done; \
	else \
		(cd engine && $(MAKE) DOSTRIP=$(DOSTRIP) $@ ) && \
		$(CP) engine/$@ $@ && \
		($(MASSAGE_EXE) $@ || true); \
		true; \
		 $(MAKE) checkone ENGINE=./engine/$@; \
	fi
	$(DOSTRIP) $@

I don't understand why it fails on this computer, maybe some old libraries lying around.

At the moment I'll keep the compilation made on the other computer and it will be good enough :) (I no longer have my ~/.config/gforthrc0 or gforthrc loaded)