[AUCTeX] Re: Successful Installation under MS Windows

[David Kastrup]

"Morrell S. Chance" <address@hidden> writes:

> Thanks for the responses so far.
>
> My installation of Auctex is mostly working. I get the command item in emacs,
> eg. The problem with creation of a directory c:\Program was, I think, from my
> using the recommended options:
>  
>  --prefix=c:/Program Files/emacs and 
>  --with emacs=c/Program Files/emacs
>  
> The installation correctly parsed these blanks

Uh, "correctly parsed" and "did not barf for some reason" are two
different things.  Seems like autoconf does not mind arbitrary garbage
on the command line of configure.  Rats.

> but created a new directory c:/Program where it placed the 'info'
> and 'var' folders.

Yes, this would be because of the option --prefix=c:/Program

> I manually placed the 'info' folder in the info directory of the
> Emacs installation and the Auctex manual comes up properly, but
> don't know how or where to move the other files. However even
> without this all else seems to be working.  Suggestions welcome
> here.

Questions and snide remarks in the following are _not_ addressed at
you, but at my poor fellow developers.

> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
> This file contains any messages produced by compilers while
>
> running configure, to aid debugging if configure makes a mistake.
>
> It was created by auctex configure 11.55, which was
>
> generated by GNU Autoconf 2.59. Invocation command line was
>
> $ ./configure --prefix=c:/Program Files/emacs --with-emacs=c/Program
> Files/emacs

Too bad that the invocation line does not quotify.  Or maybe it does.
The --with-emacs option looks adventurous, too.

> PATH: /usr/local/bin
>
> PATH: /mingw/bin
>
> PATH: /bin
>
> PATH: /c/WINDOWS/system32

Shucks.  _That_'s how mingw32 calls C:?

> configure:1413: checking for c/Program
>
> configure:1446: result: no

Ok, an Emacs called "c/Program" does not exist.  Why does the
configure script not bail right here?

> configure:1413: checking for emacs
>
> configure:1431: found /c/program files/emacs/bin/emacs
>
> configure:1443: result: /c/program files/emacs/bin/emacs
>
> configure:1460: checking if /c/program files/emacs/bin/emacs is
> XEmacs

Basically, configure navigates around most bad options.  I don't think
this is necessarily a good idea.

> I consider it likely that your installation is hosed.

Actually, I consider it even more likely now and am surprised that as
much seems to work as apparently does.

configure seems to do a much better job when one throws nonsense at it
than would be appropriate.

> The normal reading order in Western Europe is top to bottom.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum