Cross Compiling Freeling

Why?

Well basically i like Freeling, i think is a quite good platform, and i like to use it in Windows. And actually i've seen only two ways to get a win32 version and i said myself, "What the hell!!" if everybody says that's complicated it must be very fun, and this is the main reason, just for fun. http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~nlp/freeling/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=55&func=view&id=333&catid=5&limit=6&limitstart=0

How?

Well in order to get the binaries prepared for the win32 platform we have to follow those steps:
• Installing MingW32
• Downloading Pcre, Berkeley Database, Boost, Libcfg+, Omlet, Fries and Freeling
• Cross-Compiling Everything
• PCRE
• BDB
• Boost
• LIbCFG+
• Omlet
• Fries
• Freeling
• Testing and Voila

Installing MingW32

First step is to install mingw and the binutils. In ubuntu to do so you should use this command: #sudo apt-get install mingw32 build-essential automake libtool subversion swig After that you can check the directory /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/ and the compiler version, if i do execute: #i586-mingw32msvc-c++ --version i586-mingw32msvc-c++ (GCC) 4.2.1-sjlj (mingw32-2) Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Now it seems we have the system ready. If you can't use deb, rpm or similar, visit http://www.mingw.org

Downloading

After the installation we can go with the downloading, to know exactly what we need to download you can follow the instructions at http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~nlp/freeling/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=63 And Following that list we need:
• PCRE: http://www.pcre.org/
• Berkeley Database: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/berkeleydb/overview/index.html
• Boost: http://www.boost.org/
• LibCgf+ : http://platon.sk/projects/main_page.php?project_id=3
• FreeLing, Omlet and Fries : http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~nlp/freeling/
LibCFG is included with Freeling. I personally used subversion as the origin of the sources from Freeling.

Compiling

Well let's do it. Actually i have a directory that looks like that: /boost_1_44_0 /boost-jam-3.1.18 /db-5.0.26.NC /freeling /fries /libcfg+-0.6.2 /omlet /pcre-8.10. And now will arrange everything to compile the sources and put the results (libraries) in the right place to make the final compilation (freeling). Note: If you prefer using mingw versions of the files you can avoid the compiling process. Yes, is truth, you can pick a binary distribution for windows, and place the files, usually lib and includes in the right places (/usr/i586-mingw32msvc/) and you will get the same result.

How do we cross compile?

To make a cross compilation we need to set those environment variables:
• export CXX=i586-mingw32msvc-g++
• export CC=i586-mingw32msvc-gcc
• export AR=i586-mingw32msvc-ar
• export RANLIB=i586-mingw32msvc-ranlib
• export LD=i586-mingw32msvc-ld
• export RANLIB=i586-mingw32msvc-ranlib
With that and passing the variable --host=mingw32 to the configure tool everything should work.
LibCFG+:

./configure --build=mingw --host=mingw32 ; make all ; sudo cp libcfg+.a /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/lib/ After this we will have the first library compiled. Easy, isn't.

PCRE:

./configure --disable-shared --enable-utf8 --host=mingw32 --enable-unicode-properties CFLAGS="-mno-cygwin" && make sudo cp .libs/*.a /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/lib/ If you want can generate the dll too: make pcre.dll sudo cp pcre.dll /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/bin sudo cp pcre.h /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/include/ Note: If you find problems linking freeling maybe you need to set #define PCRE_STATIC 1 in config.h Note2: http://forums.badadev.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=724

Berkeley Database:

cd build_unix ../dist/configure --enable-mingw LIBCSO_LIBS=-lwsock32 LIBXSO_LIBS=-lwsock32 --disable-shared --enable-utf8 --enable-cxx && make sudo cp *.a /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/lib/ sudo cp ../build_windows/db_cxx.h /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/include/ sudo cp db.h /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/include/ If you are having problems with BdB maybe have to change to an older version as suggests Mathieu in this blog entry: http://mathieu.carbou.free.fr/wiki/index.php?title=Berkeley_DB_for_MinGW

Boost:

cd boost-jam-3.1.18 ./bootstrap.sh --without-icu cd boost_1_44_0 ./bjam toolset=gcc target-os=windows variant=release threading=multi threadapi=win32 link=shared runtime-link=shared --prefix=$PREFIX --user-config=user-config.jam -j 2--without-mpi --without-python -sNO_BZIP2=1 -sNO_ZLIB=1 --layout=tagged --build-type=complete stage Now to install you can choose or add install to the previous command or copy from stage the .a, and dll to the right places sudo cp stage/lib/*.a /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/lib sudo cp stage/lib/*.dll /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/bin sudo cp -R boost /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/include/

Omlet:

cd omlet aclocal; libtoolize; autoconf; automake -a ./configure --host=mingw32 && make sudo cp src/libomlet/.libs/libomlet.a /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/lib/ sudo cp -R src/include/omlet* /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/include/

Fries:

cd fries aclocal; libtoolize; autoconf; automake -a ./configure --host=mingw32 && make sudo cp src/libfries/.libs/libfries.a /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/lib/ sudo cp -R src/include/fries* /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/include/ sudo cp src/include/regexp-pcre++.h /usr/i586-mingw32msvc/include/

Freeling

export CFLAGS=-DPCRE_STATIC

export CXXFLAGS=-DPCRE_STATIC  

export LDFLAGS=-DPCRE_STATIC  

cd freeling aclocal; libtoolize; autoconf; automake -a ./configure --disable-libDB --host=mingw32  

(if at this point you get an error like: "checking fries.h usability... no" and "fries.h not found", the problem, can be caused by the headers cause those won't compile, please review those in order to get the right headers, basically replace "" with <> from the right places, in the includes) make (This will compile the code *.o but will fail in the linking process, to get the final dll and .exe will have to follow those instructions) If you need the analyzer.exe tool edit src/main/sample_analyzer/socket.h, in order to support winsock for the mingw:

#ifdef WIN32 # include <winsock2.h> #else # include <sys/socket.h> # include <sys/param.h> # include <netinet/in.h> # include <arpa/inet.h> # include <netdb.h> #endif

and this is the command to generate the morfo.dll :  

cd src/libmorfo  

# i586-mingw32msvc-g++ -shared -shared-libgcc -o morfo.dll -Wl,--add-stdcall-alias -Wl,--out-implib=libmorfo.dll.a -Wl,--export-all-symbols -Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--whole-archive .libs/libmorfo.a -Wl,--no-whole-archive -ldb_cxx -lpcre -lfries -lomlet -lboost_filesystem-mt -lboost_system-mt -lws2_32  

if you get an error with the property_map.hpp, this can be caused cause you have a different version. I solved the issue editing the files: disambiguator/ukb/common.h, disambiguator/ukb/kbGraph.h replacing this: -#include <boost/property_map.hpp>

With this:

+#include <boost/property_map/property_map.hpp>

If you get an error related to pthread this can happen cause some crappy installations (ubuntu .deb package) don't include this as standard. Pelase visit :http://sourceware.org/pthreads-win32/ to get a valid version. cd src/APIs/java This will generate the skeleton of the java lib:  

#swig -java -c++ -package morfo -outdir morfo -o libmorfo_wrap.cxx -I/usr/share/swig1.3/java -I/usr/share/swig1.3/std -I/usr/share/swig1.3 -I/mnt/old/src/freeling/freeling/APIs/morfo libmorfo_java.i and this will generate the morfo_java.dll  

#i586-mingw32msvc-g++ -shared-libgcc -o morfo_java.dll libmorfo_wrap.cxx -Wl,--add-stdcall-alias -shared -Wl,--out-implib=morfo_java.dll.a -Wl,--export-all-symbols -Wl,--enable-auto-import -Wl,--no-whole-archive -lmorfo -ldb_cxx -lpcre -lws2_32 -I. -I/usr/local/java/include/ -I/usr/local/java/include/linux/  

If you modify slightly the Makefile at APIs/java will get the same result wiht less effort. If you get problems with the pthread version can try removing the pthread include from iso2utf.h, it doesn't use it and will work. Finally if you are having problems wiht maco (nice in catalan ) you have to follow this note: ## There used to be problems when deleting "maco" objects from java. ## Maybe swig has fixed this... If you experience such problems, ## overwrite class morfo/maco.java with classes_aux/maco.java before ## packing the .jar this will generate the analyzer.exe  

#i586-mingw32msvc-g++ -DPCRE_STATIC -O3 -Wall -DPCRE_STATIC -o analyzer.exe analyzer.o -L/usr/i586-mingw32msvc/lib -lmorfo -lfries -lomlet -lcfg+ -ldb_cxx -lpcrecpp -lpcre -lws2_32 -lboost_filesystem-mt

Shared libgcc: If all modules are linked with -shared-libgcc, exceptions can be thrown across DLL boundaries.

Finally The Binaries:

Well maybe you just don't care about the process, don't have a linux machine to compile or simply don't have the time to dedicate, to compile this. Here you have a tested binary package that can use. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1974426/freeling-2.2-mingw32.zip Those binaries were compiled in a VirtualBox with an Ubuntu10.10 installed and GCC 4.2.1-sjlj (mingw32-2) as the compiler.

Conclusion:

I think Freeling is a great tool, Luis and all the developers that have worked in that tool did a great job, and one demonstration of this good work is that the code can be cross compiled without changing the code. I like cross compiling and i enjoyed preparing this guide and getting the work done with the binaries for windows compiled in my linux box, but i have to recognize is more complicated and error prone than it should. I hope in the future we will be able to integrate the little changes in the original compiling process, maybe can get some ideas from pcre (make pcre.dll). Thanks for your time and attention, if you find errors please send the corrections to the development mailing list.