[nhc-users] porting to MS VC++.NET

[Malcolm Wallace]

"David Bakin" <davidbak@attbi.com> writes:

> By the way, I'd like to try to port nhc98 to Microsoft VC++.NET - just to
> provide a more convenient environment.  I am just getting started with nhc
> (as you see) and have no idea how big a project this would be, though I can
> imagine some of the common areas of difficulty (e.g., annoying things like
> the file separators below).  Has anyone tried this?

I don't think anyone has tried it before.  Aside from the basic
platform differences you can already guess:

  * Add .exe to executable filenames
  * Use \ as a directory separator instead of /
  * PATH uses ; instead of :

the main obstacles will be:

  * The Makefiles assume some GNU extensions
  * The Top-level drivers are shell-scripts

On the latter point, nhc98 (and hmake) have shell-script drivers to
interpret arguments and call the various stages (pre-processor, Haskell
compiler, C compiler, assembler, linker, etc.).  Since native windows
doesn't have the Bourne shell, you either need to haul in Cygwin's
'bash' (and associated tools like sed, cut, etc) just for that job,
or re-code the scripts (perhaps in Haskell?).

Regards,
    Malcolm