I’ve cleaned up a bunch more cruft from the Inform6 for Unix package at https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/inform6unix/ and I think it’s now ready. I still need to verify that my fixes for macOS will in fact work. So, could I get someone with a Mac to check it out? Specifically I need to know that it builds and installs correctly and is capable of compiling Inform6 code for Z-machine and Glulx AND take into account a case-insensitive filesystem if that’s how the machine is set up.
1 Like
I work on a Mac, but I have never worked with Inform… if you don’t find someone else within a day or two I will try to see if I can find time to run your tests…
What he just said. Happy to help by following a detailed recipe (running 10.14.6 here) but have zero ability to solve any problems that might arise.
I’m sure I’m doing something very silly, but I’ve fallen at the first hurdle and can’t even get it to build! I’m on macOS Mojave:
XXXXXXX-MBP:inform6unix-master xxxxx$ ls
ARTISTIC Makefile VERSION docs lib
AUTHORS NEWS contrib include src
COPYING README.md demos inform.1 tutor
XXXXXXX-MBP:inform6unix-master xxxxx$ pwd
/Users/xxxxx/Documents/IF/inform6unix-master
XXXXXXX-MBP:inform6unix-master xxxxx$ make
cc -o inform
clang: error: no input files
make: *** [inform] Error 1
XXXXXXX-MBP:inform6unix-master xxxxx$
Same happens to me.
You need to first do make submodule to pull in the compiler and library code.
Okay, did the git gyrations and compiled. Now what?
“make submodule” and “make submodules” both also fail.
The Readme gives the impression that you don’t necessarily have to use Git. So I just downloaded a zip of the code and tried to compile with “make”.
Do I actually have to check out the code with Git (which I’ve never used in anger)? What are the Git gyrations I need to perform if so?
It doesn’t seem to support downloading from the gitlab repo as a zip file. You have to do
git clone https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/inform6unix.git
It seems to work, although I haven’t gone through the install and uninstall. (I have too many versions of inform lying around; don’t want to get them into /usr/local.) The tutorial games all compiled.
Macs have defaulted to a case-insensitive filesystem since OSX came out, so that answers that part.
There’s a bit of confusion in the Makefile: files are installed to $(DESTDIR) but uninstalled from $(PREFIX). These are both /usr/local by default, but maybe someone will change one of them and get confused.
1 Like
Thanks. That worked. I compiled Inform and then used Inform to compile one of the tutorial games successfully.
There’s ongoing discussion on the Gitlab support forums about making those tarball/zip downloads process submodule stuff. There’s a consensus that it’s a good idea, but no clear timetable on when that’ll be implemented. In the meantime I’ve uploaded a beta to the IF Archive for those of you who’d rather not deal with git.
Aaaand I’ll be working on that DESTDIR versus PREFIX confusion…
Downloads for Inform6 for Unix (and the bare 6.12.4 Library) are now available at https://661.org/proj/if/