[PD] flext + syncgrain~ problem

[Thomas Grill]

Hi Derek,

> Syncgrain~ must be the wierdest "external" to get running! There really
> aren't any "installation" or usage instructions that come with it, but
> from searching the archives I can see that it "just works [tm]" if you
> have Flext installed with SndObj support.

hmm, that wasn't stated by me, since SndObj support is "just there [tm]" but
not really well tested.

> Well, I have done exactly that, with pd-0.38-0test10 as the base, and
> the [syncgrain~] object still fails to make.
>
> I figured it was a problem finding Flext, so I added
> "/usr/local/lib/pd/flext" to my /etc/ld.so.conf and ran "ldconfig" to no
> avail.

this is only relevant for externals that are linked dynamically, however you
can also link it statically.

> So then I checked out the latest Flext version from CVS. I sucessfulyl
> compiled and installed it, but that didn't help either. One thing I am
> not sure about is how to make sure that SndObj support is enabled with
> the new build system Thomas is using.

When compiling flext you should have got the note on the console to edit
config.txt, which contains the necessary lines for STK and SndObj support.
If one of the definitions in config.txt is set, the respective source files
are compiled and linked - if there's no error in the build process you can
be sure that STK/SndObj support is enabled.

Of course this only applies to flext itself.
If externals like to use the new build system they have to have some package
information, that can range from simple for externals with no external
dependencies to quite complex.
In the simplest case it breaks down to just having a "package.txt" file with
the following content:
NAME=name of external
SRCS=source code files
Please see build.txt and buildsys/readme.txt in the flext folder for more
info.

> Incidentally, the "./bootstrap.sh" option for the build throws all kinds
> of errors of this sort:
>
> source/Makefile.am:82: warning: automake does not support conditional
> definition of SRCS_FLEXT in libflext_pd_td_a_SOURCES
> source/Makefile.am:96: invalid unused variable name:
> `libflext_pd_td_a_LDFLAGS'
>
> And no .configure file is generated, so I could not use it.
>
> Is there anything else I can try to get this working?

I'll introduce the latest changes of Tim Blechmann into the cvs version...
let's see if it works then.

good luck,
Thomas