Issues when building under Windows

[stevenengland]

Environment

Windows 11

Description

Hi there, when trying to build r2 then I face these problems:

running preconfigure

Does only succeed when invoked within a Visual Studio developer console. In a normal terminal the process fails when looking for VS:

Your current Host Architecture is amd64
Please select the Target Architecture:
1. x86
2. amd64 [x64]
3. arm
4. arm64
Enter your choice (1-4): 2
VSARCH is set to: amd64
=== Finding Visual Studio...
Syntaxfehler. <-- syntax error

running configure

sdb| Subproject sdb finished.


meson.build:513:0: ERROR: Program 'cp' not found or not executable

A full log can be found at C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled\vs\meson-logs\meson-log.txt
VS failed Try running 'preconfigure'

Currently I am stuck here but will keep on reporting step by step.

[trufae]

Can you try to fix this syntax error problem in the batch file?

[stevenengland]

Hi, no because I don't have a clue what's the actual syntax error :-) And as I said: Running the batch file in a VS developer console instead of a normal terminal then the error does not appear. Seems like the developer console loads some more environmental stuff that is needed.

[trufae]

try this preconfigured.bat and confirm the syntax error is gone please #24061

[trufae]

try again

[stevenengland]

Hi @trufae , the error is gone 🎉 Unfortunately there is more:

(venv) C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled>configure
The Meson build system
Version: 0.61.99
Source dir: C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled
Build dir: C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled\vs
Build type: native build
WARNING: Project targeting '>=0.50' but tried to use feature introduced in '0.55.0': Wrap files with patch_directory.
Project name: radare2
Project version: 5.9.9

meson.build:1:0: ERROR: Compiler cl can not compile programs.

A full log can be found at C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled\vs\meson-logs\meson-log.txt
VS failed Try running 'preconfigure'

Build started at 2025-03-12T22:07:19.325173
Main binary: C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled\venv\Scripts\python.exe
Build Options: -Dsdb_cgen=false -Dc_std=c11 -Dbackend=vs
Python system: Windows
The Meson build system
Version: 0.61.99
Source dir: C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled
Build dir: C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled\vs
Build type: native build
WARNING: Project targeting '>=0.50' but tried to use feature introduced in '0.55.0': Wrap files with patch_directory.
Project name: radare2
Project version: 5.9.9
Sanity testing C compiler: cl
Is cross compiler: False.
Sanity check compiler command line: cl sanitycheckc.c /Fesanitycheckc.exe /MDd /nologo /showIncludes /utf-8 /link
Sanity check compile stdout:
sanitycheckc.c
LINK : fatal error LNK1104: Datei "MSVCRTD.lib" kann nicht ge ffnet werden.

-----
Sanity check compile stderr:

-----

meson.build:1:0: ERROR: Compiler cl can not compile programs.

regarding the MSVCRTD.lib I see a lot of stuff that might be the cause but the most important thing: The file exists. Thats not the problem ;) Besides that the search for the cause is a rabbithole...

[trufae]

You are using an ancient meson. (0.x) latest is 1.7

The ci builds fine with visual studio 2019, 2022 at least and mingw compilers too. So i guess the problem must be in your side now

[stevenengland]

Hm, isn't meson installed by your tool chain? Via preconfigure? At least I am not aware that I installed meson onto the VM by my own. Can you confirm that?

And I am using VS 2022 free edition.

[trufae]

uh seems like a lefotver i was not considering here. yeah, the preconfigure is installing an old meson. lemme fix

[trufae]

Try again. You must rimraf the venv directory

[stevenengland]

Here we go:

VSARCH is set to: amd64
=== Finding Visual Studio...
"Found 2022 Community edition"
**********************************************************************
** Visual Studio 2022 Developer Command Prompt v17.13.3
** Copyright (c) 2022 Microsoft Corporation
**********************************************************************
[vcvarsall.bat] Environment initialized for: 'x64'
Now you can run 'configure'
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26100.2605]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

(venv) C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled>configure
The Meson build system
Version: 1.7.0
Source dir: C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled
Build dir: C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled\vs
Build type: native build
WARNING: Project targets '>=0.50' but uses feature introduced in '0.55.0': Wrap files with patch_directory.
Project name: radare2
Project version: 5.9.9

meson.build:1:0: ERROR: Compiler cl cannot compile programs.

A full log can be found at C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled\vs\meson-logs\meson-log.txt
WARNING: Running the setup command as `meson [options]` instead of `meson setup [options]` is ambiguous and deprecated.
VS failed Try running 'preconfigure'

meson-log.txt

-----------
stderr:
Microsoft (R) C/C++-Optimierungscompiler Version 19.43.34809 f r x64
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
-----------
Sanity testing C compiler: cl
Is cross compiler: False.
Sanity check compiler command line: cl sanitycheckc.c /Fesanitycheckc.exe /MDd /nologo /showIncludes /utf-8 /link
Sanity check compile stdout:
sanitycheckc.c
LINK : fatal error LNK1104: Datei "MSVCRTD.lib" kann nicht ge ffnet werden.

-----
Sanity check compile stderr:

-----

meson.build:1:0: ERROR: Compiler cl cannot compile programs.

[stevenengland]

When using a VS Developer shell, activating the venv there then the configure commands succeeds.

[stevenengland]

After that the make command fails.

Calling ninja -C b install in isolation leads to:

Running custom install script 'C:\\Users\\vboxuser\\Desktop\\radare2_compiled\\sys/create_r2.bat'

(venv) C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled\b>MKDIR c:/\bin
Syntaxfehler.
Das System kann den angegebenen Pfad nicht finden.

(venv) C:\Users\vboxuser\Desktop\radare2_compiled\b>EXIT 0

Seems like MESON_INSTALL_PREFIX is not set in create_r2.bat

In this code base I can't find where it shall been set before the make command. Googling the variable does not lead to an official documentation about this one so it seems to me that it will not be populated by the meson installation. Where should this variable point to?