Hassle I had to work around when compiling 24.4 on Windows

[Joel Bion]

I keep Emacs up to date on both GNU/Linux and Windows machines. 
Installing the GNU/Linux from source was trivial, as would be expected.

However, compiling the Windows version from source gave me the following 
error (at end of email). To work around this quite annoying error, I had 
to manually edit malloc.h in MinGW/include and have it forcibly define 
alloca and _alloca as __builtin_alloca. When I do this, things all 
compile fine and I have a brand-spanking new Emacs 24.4 on my Windows 
machine that runs as well as my 24.3 build from last year.

My point: It really, REALLY doesn't feel nice to edit malloc.h!

My question: What am I doing wrong that requires me to do this? And if 
this is required, shouldn't a pointer to doing this be in the INSTALL 
file in the nt subdirectory?

Thanks for any thoughts,
Joel

...
checking for alloca... yes
...

Configured for `i686-pc-mingw32'.

  Where should the build process find the source code?    .
  What compiler should emacs be built with?               gcc  
-std=gnu99 -g3 -O
2 -gdwarf-2
  Should Emacs use the GNU version of malloc?             yes
  Should Emacs use a relocating allocator for buffers?    yes
  Should Emacs use mmap(2) for buffer allocation?         no
  What window system should Emacs use?                    w32
  What toolkit should Emacs use?                          none
  Where do we find X Windows header files?                NONE
  Where do we find X Windows libraries?                   NONE
  Does Emacs use -lXaw3d?                                 no
  Does Emacs use -lXpm?                                   no
  Does Emacs use -ljpeg?                                  no
  Does Emacs use -ltiff?                                  no
  Does Emacs use a gif library?                           no
  Does Emacs use a png library?                           no
  Does Emacs use -lrsvg-2?                                no
  Does Emacs use imagemagick?                             no
  Does Emacs support sound?                               yes
  Does Emacs use -lgpm?                                   no
  Does Emacs use -ldbus?                                  no
  Does Emacs use -lgconf?                                 no
  Does Emacs use GSettings?                               no
  Does Emacs use a file notification library?             yes (w32)
  Does Emacs use access control lists?                    yes
  Does Emacs use -lselinux?                               no
  Does Emacs use -lgnutls?                                no
  Does Emacs use -lxml2?                                  no
  Does Emacs use -lfreetype?                              no
  Does Emacs use -lm17n-flt?                              no
  Does Emacs use -lotf?                                   no
  Does Emacs use -lxft?                                   no
  Does Emacs directly use zlib?                           no
  Does Emacs use toolkit scroll bars?                     yes


checking that generated files are newer than configure... done
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating lib/Makefile
config.status: creating lib-src/Makefile
config.status: creating oldXMenu/Makefile
config.status: creating doc/emacs/Makefile
config.status: creating doc/misc/Makefile
config.status: creating doc/lispintro/Makefile
config.status: creating doc/lispref/Makefile
config.status: creating src/Makefile
config.status: creating lwlib/Makefile
config.status: creating lisp/Makefile
config.status: creating leim/Makefile
config.status: creating nextstep/Makefile
config.status: creating nt/Makefile
config.status: creating admin/unidata/Makefile
config.status: creating admin/grammars/Makefile
config.status: creating src/config.h
config.status: executing depfiles commands
config.status: executing src/epaths.h commands
config.status: executing src/.gdbinit commands

address@hidden /c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4
$ make
[ -r "src/config.in" ] || ( cd . && autoheader )
cd nt && make all                          \
          CC='gcc  -std=gnu99' CFLAGS='-g3 -O2 -gdwarf-2' 
CPPFLAGS='-mtune=penti
um4   -DUSE_CRT_DLL=1 -I /c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/nt/inc' \
          LDFLAGS='' MAKE='make'
make[1]: Entering directory `/c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/nt'
windres -I . -O coff -o emacs.res ./emacs.rc
gcc  -std=gnu99 -mtune=pentium4    -I. -I.   -mtune=pentium4   
-DUSE_CRT_DLL=1 -
I /c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/nt/inc -g3 -O2 -gdwarf-2 ./runemacs.c 
emacs.re
s -mwindows \
         -o runemacs.exe
gcc  -std=gnu99 -mtune=pentium4    -I. -I.   -mtune=pentium4   
-DUSE_CRT_DLL=1 -
I /c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/nt/inc -g3 -O2 -gdwarf-2 ./addpm.c 
-lole32 -lu
uid -o addpm.exe
gcc  -std=gnu99 -mtune=pentium4    -I. -I.   -mtune=pentium4   
-DUSE_CRT_DLL=1 -
I /c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/nt/inc -g3 -O2 -gdwarf-2 ./cmdproxy.c 
-o cmdpr
oxy.exe
gcc  -std=gnu99 -mtune=pentium4    -I. -I.   -mtune=pentium4   
-DUSE_CRT_DLL=1 -
I /c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/nt/inc -g3 -O2 -gdwarf-2 ./ddeclient.c 
-o ddec
lient.exe
gcc  -std=gnu99 -mtune=pentium4    -I. -I.   -mtune=pentium4   
-DUSE_CRT_DLL=1 -
I /c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/nt/inc -g3 -O2 -gdwarf-2 
./addsection.c -o add
section.exe
make[1]: Leaving directory `/c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/nt'
cd lib && make all                          \
          CC='gcc  -std=gnu99' CFLAGS='-g3 -O2 -gdwarf-2' 
CPPFLAGS='-mtune=penti
um4   -DUSE_CRT_DLL=1 -I /c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/nt/inc' \
          LDFLAGS='' MAKE='make'
make[1]: Entering directory `/c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/lib'
rm -f alloca.h-t alloca.h && \
        { echo '/* DO NOT EDIT! GENERATED AUTOMATICALLY! */'; \
          cat ./alloca.in.h; \
        } > alloca.h-t && \
        mv -f alloca.h-t alloca.h
rm -f byteswap.h-t byteswap.h && \
        { echo '/* DO NOT EDIT! GENERATED AUTOMATICALLY! */'; \
          cat ./byteswap.in.h; \
        } > byteswap.h-t && \
        mv -f byteswap.h-t byteswap.h
rm -f errno.h-t errno.h && \
        { echo '/* DO NOT EDIT! GENERATED AUTOMATICALLY! */' && \
          sed -e 's|@''GUARD_PREFIX''@|GL|g' \
              -e 's|@''INCLUDE_NEXT''@|include_next|g' \
              -e 's|@''PRAGMA_SYSTEM_HEADER''@|#pragma GCC 
system_header|g' \
              -e 's|@''PRAGMA_COLUMNS''@||g' \
              -e 's|@''NEXT_ERRNO_H''@|<errno.h>|g' \
              -e 's|@''EMULTIHOP_HIDDEN''@|0|g' \
              -e 's|@''EMULTIHOP_VALUE''@||g' \
              -e 's|@''ENOLINK_HIDDEN''@|0|g' \
              -e 's|@''ENOLINK_VALUE''@||g' \
              -e 's|@''EOVERFLOW_HIDDEN''@|0|g' \
              -e 's|@''EOVERFLOW_VALUE''@||g' \
              < ./errno.in.h; \
        } > errno.h-t && \
        mv errno.h-t errno.h
rm -f execinfo.h-t execinfo.h && \
        { echo '/* DO NOT EDIT! GENERATED AUTOMATICALLY! */'; \
          cat ./execinfo.in.h; \
        } > execinfo.h-t && \
        mv execinfo.h-t execinfo.h
rm -f arg-nonnull.h-t arg-nonnull.h && \
        sed -n -e '/GL_ARG_NONNULL/,$p' \
          < ../build-aux/snippet/arg-nonnull.h \
          > arg-nonnull.h-t && \
        mv arg-nonnull.h-t arg-nonnull.h
rm -f getopt.h-t getopt.h && \
        { echo '/* DO NOT EDIT! GENERATED AUTOMATICALLY! */'; \
          sed -e 's|@''GUARD_PREFIX''@|GL|g' \
              -e 's|@''HAVE_GETOPT_H''@|0|g' \
              -e 's|@''INCLUDE_NEXT''@|include_next|g' \
              -e 's|@''PRAGMA_SYSTEM_HEADER''@|#pragma GCC 
system_header|g' \
              -e 's|@''PRAGMA_COLUMNS''@||g' \
              -e 's|@''NEXT_GETOPT_H''@|<getopt.h>|g' \
              -e '/definition of _GL_ARG_NONNULL/r arg-nonnull.h' \
              < ./getopt.in.h; \
        } > getopt.h-t && \
        mv -f getopt.h-t getopt.h
rm -f c++defs.h-t c++defs.h && \
        sed -n -e '/_GL_CXXDEFS/,$p' \
          < ../build-aux/snippet/c++defs.h \
          > c++defs.h-t && \
        mv c++defs.h-t c++defs.h
rm -f warn-on-use.h-t warn-on-use.h && \
        sed -n -e '/^.ifndef/,$p' \
          < ../build-aux/snippet/warn-on-use.h \
          > warn-on-use.h-t && \
        mv warn-on-use.h-t warn-on-use.h
make  all-am
make[2]: Entering directory `/c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/lib'
gcc  -std=gnu99 -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I../lib -I../src -I../src   
-mtune=pentium4
   -DUSE_CRT_DLL=1 -I /c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/nt/inc    -g3 -O2 
-gdwarf-
2 -MT c-ctype.o -MD -MP -MF .deps/c-ctype.Tpo -c -o c-ctype.o c-ctype.c
In file included from ../src/config.h:1840:0,
                 from c-ctype.c:18:
../src/conf_post.h:49:3: error: #error "alloca not available on this 
machine"
 # error "alloca not available on this machine"
   ^
make[2]: *** [c-ctype.o] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/lib'
make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4/lib'
make: *** [lib] Error 2

address@hidden /c/usrlocal/emacssrc/emacs-24.4
$