External modules
It appears that the consensus from the discussion following my earlier
modules question was that:
a) I should do my own autoconf magic (which, as somebody mentioned,
wasn't all that hard); and
b) I should structure my module so that it can be compiled outside of
the XEmacs source tree (i.e., make it an external module).
For the information of whoever is responsible for modules (I don't see
anyone listed on <URL:http://xemacs.sourceforge.net/Develop/jobs.html>),
here are the obstacles I have encountered so far in accomplishing (b),
working with the XEmacs 21.2.37 distribution:
1) Missing header files.
a) emodules.h is not installed anywhere when XEmacs is installed,
so I can't very well include it.
b) A bunch of other header files, needed by emodules.h, are also
not installed. These include lisp.h, sysdep.h, window.h,
buffer.h, etc.
Incidentally, speaking of installed header files, why are the
entire s&m directories installed in
.../lib/xemacs-21.2-b37/config-name/include? It's a
machine-specific directory, so why do I want header files for every
machine under the sun?
2) Lack of examples.
a) The examples in the modules directory of the XEmacs distribution
are all of internal modules. That is, they only build inside
the XEmacs source tree. And even then, they aren't right. They
only build inside the source tree *if you built XEmacs itself
inside the source tree*. If you, like me, build XEmacs for
multiple platforms, and therefore use VPATH to build outside of
the source tree, the modules won't build at all, due to
assumptions about the location of ellcc and make-docfile.
b) The example Makefiles (and, strangely, not the README in the
modules directory) all refer to "samples in the sub-directory
'installed'" to show how to write modules to be compiled outside
of the XEmacs source tree. That subdirectory is not part of the
XEmacs 21.2.37 distribution, the comments are in the wrong
place, and I doubt that such examples even exist due to problem
#1.
I am willing to be a guinea pig to help get external modules working,
but I need some direction from the list and whoever is coordinating
module development.
Regards,
--
Jerry James