Building NSPR on Windows NT and Windows 95

1. Install the compiler

Visual C++ 4.2 or later.

2. Install the following tools: gmake.exe, shmsdos.exe, and uname.exe

These tools are available as part of the mozilla.org distribution as executable binaries (precompiled for either I386 or Alpha) or as sources. The latest gmake and bash from the from Free Software Foundation are possible substitutes, though they will not perform as well.

3. Check out the source code

Check out the source code

cvs co mozilla/nsprpub

4. Build it

Now you can build NSPR.

cd mozilla\nsprpub
gmake export

Note: To build for the WIN95 target on an NT machine, you can set the environment variable OS_TARGET to WIN95. For example, in a DOS Prompt, you say:
set OS_TARGET=WIN95
Then you can do gmake export as usual. Alternatively, you can define the OS_TARGET variable on the gmake command line:
gmake export OS_TARGET=WIN95
The first time you do gmake export, mozilla\dist will be created. Assuming you are running Windows NT 4.0, header files are copied to mozilla\dist\WINNT4.0_DBG.OBJ\include and the libraries, libnspr21.lib, libnspr21.dll, etc., are copied to mozilla\dist\WINNT4.0_DBG.OBJ\lib. You need to add the mozilla\dist\WINNT4.0_DBG.OBJ\lib directory (use an absolute full pathname) to your Path variable so that the DLLs like libnspr21.dll can be found.

Note: on NT-Alpha, the name of the object directory would be WINNT4.0ALPHA_DBG.OBJ.

We have some test programs in the directory mozilla\nsprpub\pr\tests. Assuming you are running Windows NT 4.0, the binary executables are created in the WINNT4.0_DBG.OBJ subdirectory. To run the test program cvar, for example, you say

cd mozilla\nsprpub\pr\tests\WINNT4.0_DBG.OBJ
cvar


Note: Remember to add the mozilla\dist\WINNT4.0_DBG.OBJ\lib directory to your Path variable before you run the test programs.