From: Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com   
      
   David Brown  writes:   
   > On 24/10/2025 15:27, bart wrote:   
   [...]   
   >> Well I built cdecl too, under WSL. Jesus, that looked a lot of work!   
   >   
   > I have no experience with WSL, so I can't comment on the effort   
   > there. For my own use on a Linux system, I had to install a package   
   > (apt-get install libreadline-dev), but that's neither difficult to do,   
   > or time-consuming, and it was not hard to see what was needed.  Of   
   > course, a non-programmer might not have realised that was needed, but   
   > if you are stumped on a configure script error "readline.h header not   
   > found, use --without-readline" and can't figure out how to get   
   > "readline.h" or configure the program to avoid using it, and can't at   
   > least google for help, then you are probably not the target audience   
   > for cdecl.   
      
   WSL, "Windows Subsystem for Linux" (which should probably have been   
   called "Linux Subsystem for Windows") provides something that looks just   
   like a direct Linux desktop system.  It supports several different   
   Linux-based distributions.  I use Ubuntu, and the build procedure under   
   WSL is exactly the same as under Ubuntu.   
      
   >> However, it took me a while to find where it put the executable, as   
   >> the make process doesn't directly tell you that. It seems it puts it   
   >> inside the src directory, which is unusual. It further appears that   
   >> you have to do 'make install' to be able to run it without a path.   
   >   
   > I agree that putting the executable in "src" is a little odd.  But   
   > running "make install" is hardly unusual - it is as standard as it   
   > gets.   (And of course there are a dozen other different ways you can   
   > arrange to run the programs without a path if you don't like "make   
   > install".)   
      
   Putting the executable in src is very common for this kind of package.   
   I generally don't notice, since I always run "make install", which knows   
   where to find the executable and where to copy it.   
      
   [...]   
      
   >> That program is 2.8 MB (10 times the size of my C compiler).   
   >   
   > First, as usual, nobody cares about a couple of megabytes.  Secondly,   
   > if you /do/ care, then you might do at least a /tiny/ bit of   
   > investigation.   First, run "strip" on it to remove debugging symbols   
   > - now it is a bit over 600 KB.  By running "strings" on it, I can see   
   > that about 100 KB is strings - messages, rules, types, keywords, etc.   
      
   It's easier than that.  The Makefile provides an "install-strip" option   
   that does the installation and strips the executable.  A lot of packages   
   like this support "make install-strip".  For those that don't, just run   
   "strip" manually after installation.   
      
   [...]   
      
   --   
   Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com   
   void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)