[ODE] compiled libs

[Mike Wuetherick]

agreed.  i've had to basically put ODE development on hold because i 
just don't have enough time in the day to decipher the build process as 
of yet.

the prebuilt lib & dll helped, at least i could get the library added to 
my project, but without the ability to maintain my own compile it sort 
of defeats the purpose of being 'open-source', at least for VC6 users...

just my 2 bits.

cheers
mike w
www.realityfactory.ca

John Miles wrote:

> Well, the problem stems from the fact that ODE's platform-specific
> configuration process is driven by an insanely-obfuscated C program known as
> "configurator.c", which is intended to autogenerate a config.h file that's
> optimized for the compiler/platform combination in question.  The
> compilation errors you get when you first build the ODE library result from
> configurator.c building different versions of config.h until it compiles
> successfully.
> 
> Maintaining configurator.c is non-trivial to say the least.  I probably
> spent two hours futzing with it to eliminate the DLL export declaration
> problems in the MSVC build, but the problem is, being strictly a Win32 guy,
> I can't be sure that my changes are still compatible with the other
> platforms and compilers that ODE supports.  It doesn't make sense for me to
> submit my build to CVS, because it will likely make the Linux/GCC folks'
> lives as annoying as the current snapshot makes MSVC users' lives.
> 
> The right thing to do (IMHO) would be for the ODE maintainers to ditch both
> configurator.c and msvcdefs.def, and hand-author config.h files and
> makefiles for the various supported compilers and platforms, using macros
> correctly to supply the appropriate __declspec declarations for Win32 DLL
> builds.  ODE is not a large library, and it doesn't have to support *that*
> many configurations.  It is ludicrous to use 500 lines of unreadable C code
> to generate a 50-line header file, but only a multiplatform-literate
> maintainer will be able to remedy the situation.
> 
> (No offense to anyone intended, by the way.  I don't usually launch into
> wild-eyed drooling rants about free software, but my development time is
> *not* free, and sorting out the various build problems with ODE has cost me
> a fair bit of it.  I wish I could do more to help.)
> 
> -- jm
> 
> 
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Ian McMeans [mailto:imcmeans at telus.net]
>>Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 1:43 PM
>>To: John Miles; ode at q12.org
>>Subject: Re: [ODE] compiled libs
>>
>>
>>Yes, when I copy over the single-precision ode\config.h header file, I no
>>longer get that "ODE Message 2" runtime error. I'm guessing what was
>>happening was my code was passing doubles as parameters, the code was
>>expecting floats, and something broke.
>>
>>Now it works, thanks :) Since this was so handy for me, maybe you
>>could make
>>the things you built more official? I guess future versions of ode will be
>>more cleanly integrated with opcode so it might not be a problem.
>>
>>
> 
> 
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