Mark Polesky wrote:

Hey,

hi.

unfortunately i am not in the position on fullfilling your request, but i'll give it another "cryptic" try...

The famous external tutorial ( http://iem.at/pd/externals-HOWTO/ ) looks very interesting, but it does me no good without knowing how to get from .c to .pd ...

the externals howto's examples are checked in at the sourceforge cvs, they come with a makefile which should be useable on windows too.

The request is simple: List the steps required (without skipping any!) to take the C source file "helloworld.c" and make it into a usable object in pd.

haha.

have you tried any online resources: e.g. http://puredata.info/docs/developer lists at least 2 pages that only deal with compiling on windows (http://puredata.info/docs/developer/mingw which basically deals with compiling pd itself on windows; but once you are there, it is simple; http://nul.jp/2002/pd_bc deals with compiling externals with the borland-compiler).

i can give you a step-by-step guide for compiling zexy though (but mind that this is how i _remember_ it; i will not go and search for a windows machine with VC installed just to verify each step).

• purchase M$ VC6 (elitarism on my side...:-)) and install it
• get pd
• download zexy (sources!) for free (e.g.

ftp://ftp.iem.at/pub/pd/Externals/ZEXY/)

• extract zexy to you favourite folder
• double-click on the zexy.dsp (or was it zexy.dsw??) in the zexy/src/

folder; this should open VC

• to to the Project->Properties (or however this is called in your

locale) and change the settings to match your setup (mainly these are the paths to find pd's headers and libraries; you should basically go through every item in the settings for the "release" and/or "debug" builds; the most important stuff is in "compiler->preprocessor", "compiler->path" and "linker->path"

• when you are finished, return to the main project window
• hit "F7" to start the build.
• if you encounter any errors, either the settings are not yet correct

(return to item-6) or the project is a bit out-of-date; the latter basically means, that the c-files to be included have not been updated; to fix this, just delete all the c-files from the project file browser (here this used to be un the left-side of the project-window), then right click on the folder in the project file browser that used to contain these files and select "add"; in the openpanel choose all c-files in zexy/src and hit "OK"

• return to item-8 until you stop getting errors

mind, that you must not use the dll while it is created (best close pd)

if you want step-by-step instructions for vc7, vc2000, vc2006 and vc3000, please send them to me and i'll give it a go :-) (dev-elitarism again)

pd comes with some externals (e.g. the foo-stuff, or [fiddle~]) and uses makefiles to build these. for this to work, you have to setup your environment correctly:

• first open the makefile (e.g. pd/doc/6.externs/makefile) with your

favourite text-editor and correct all the paths that are wrong

• VC6 came with a vc6vars.bat (ok the name is wrong but something along

these lines; it was a .bat-file which would set your envirnment variables when run; more modern incarnations might do without the .bat

• open the dosbox (the rest will happen within the dosbox)
• run the vc6vars.bat (or however it is called) if this is needed for

your compiler-incarnation

• cd to your path (e.g. pd/doc/6.externs/)
• run "nmake pd_nt"

if nmake, cl, link cannot be found, you might want to add the paths to them to your PATH variable.

any more questions?

fmga.dr IOhannes

Mark Polesky wrote:

Hey,

I'm trying not to get frustrated, seeing how posts like this one (on compiling externals for Windows) are either ignored or answered way too cryptically:

http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-list/2007-06/051182.html

I guess they get answered over and over again and then forgotten over and over again.

I posted a similar question to the "PURE DATA forum~" a few days ago, and so far it too has gone unanswered:

http://puredata.hurleur.com/sujet-1029-problem-compiling-external-windows

Is compiling an external for Windows so mysterious that no one knows how to do it? The responses that I've seen so far usually amount to "well this is how it's done on linux, try changing this to that and maybe it'll work". The famous external tutorial ( http://iem.at/pd/externals-HOWTO/ ) looks very interesting, but it does me no good without knowing how to get from .c to .pd ...

There really should be a section in that HOWTO for compiling on the different OSs.

The request is simple: List the steps required (without skipping any!) to take the C source file " helloworld.c" and make it into a usable object in pd.

If you're on some kind of MSVC, you set up a project to build a dll, in "preprocessor defines" define MSW, in "additional include paths" include the path to pd/src/m_pd.h, link with pd.lib from pd/bin, and in the linker command line add "/export:yourexternal_setup" to export the setup function. All the other functions in your code can be static and don't need to be exported. After it builds you take the dll from the release folder and put it in your pd/extra folder. That should be everything you need, but if it's too cryptic I can go into more detail...

Martin