ODS-2 builds on most platforms using the make utility.

Most of the make logic is in makefile.generic, which is
included by a platform-specific makefile.

The platform-specific files are:
  makefile.unix      -- Most Unix/Linux platforms
  makefile.solaris   -- Solaris
  makefile.tru64     -- Tru64/DEC OSF/1
  makefile.nt        -- Windows NT

Select the appropriate platform file & review the definitions.

For Unix-like OSs, defaults are set in makefile.unixdefs.

The easiest way to build ODS-2 is to softlink Makefile to
the platform file.  For example:
    ln -s makefile.unix Makefile
    make clean && make

Alternatively, the following equivalent command can be used:
    make -f makefile.unix clean && make -f makefile.unix

Copy the resulting object file, the .HLB, and .MDF files to a
convenient location on your path,
e.g. /usr/local/bin on unix, or add the build directory to the PATH
environment variable on windows.

The .HLB files contain the (compiled) help text.  The MDF files contain
message strings.  Both are binary files, may be architecture-specific,
and can be localized.

Building from source requires Perl and uses data from VMS message and header files.
Unless you are localizing messages, the included files suffice.  The procedure
for extracting localized messages from VMS is documented in the message script..

VHD support requires the libvhd in simtools/extracters/libvhd and
simtools/extracters/vhd-tools.  Note that these are different from the
vhd support in simH.

ods2 includes RMS emulation that is fairly complete (except for indexed organization).
Messages use a VMS getmsg emulation; .msg files are localizable.

If you have an alternate message file (e.g. for I18n), it will be a
.mdf file (e.g. ods2_en_us.mdf), which should also be placed in a convenient
place.

The help source is in .hlp files, which are structured text.  They are compiled
into .hlb files by makehelp. en_us.hlp is the base file; any translations should
use the same naming convention.  The makefiles generate ods2_en_us.hlb.  The
helpfile can be selected by the ODS2HELP environment variable, and/or the
set helpfile command.

The default help library filename is "ods2.hlb", in the same directory as
the ods2 executable.  This file is made a symlink or copy of the default
language by the makefile.  If another available language is desired,
softlink (or copy) the desired language file to it (or set the ODS2HELP
 environment variable.)
E.g. for US English help: ln -s ods2_en_us.hlb ods2.hlb

If you need different definitions for another platform, please
add a new platform-specific file rather than changing makefile.generic.

For development, I use a wrapper on make called "strictmake" to keep the sources
as clean as possible; it enables extra warnings from gcc (and filters a few). I
also use "grind" to run with valgrind to keep the code leak free.  Currently,
the only exception is that libedit doesn't completely clean up on exit.

On VMS, you can use the DCL command procedure build.com to build
with DECC or GCC, with
   $ @build

build.com will automatically select decc,vaxc or gcc.

If you have MMS/mmk, use descrip.mms, with
  $ mmk
To build with VAXC
  $ mmk/macro=vaxc=1

For Microsoft Windows, use Visual Studio - the free Community Edition works.
A solution file is included in ODS2's git repository.  x64, x86 builds are
supported.  Debug builds include Visual Leak Detector (a free tool), but
that can be turned off.  VLD indicates that ODS2 is leak-free on Windows.

I build for Windows with the sources on a Linux share.  This makes it easy
to test changes with one copy of the source.  The object files do not overlap;
the VS directories are excluded from git.  For convenience, the windows .EXEs
are copied to the git working directory.

Bug reports, contributions, and feature requests are welcome
at https://github.com/open-simh/simtools/issues.