Re: Compiling MacVim

> I've encountered a problem with a plugin that the developer has
> determined is due to a vim bug. He recommended that I get a more up to
> date version of vim. Currently I have MacVim 73 (53). I gather that to
> get the most up to date version it is necessary to compile it.

Note that even compiling MacVim yourself you may not get the latest Vim
version. Bjorn updates the Vim sources inside MacVim fairly regularly,
but they're still not 100% up-to-date. They are often more up-to-date
than a snapshot, though. Then again, snapshots aren't published all that
infrequently either.

> First question is should I even attempt this? [Maybe I have no
> option?] I'm a naive nonprogrammer, with about a year's experience
> fiddling around with a variety of linux packages on a barely adequate
> machine before switching to the Mac environment about three years ago.
> To the best of my recollection, I've never compiled anything.

You can try it if you want. It isn't very hard.

> I've read the instruction on github.
> <https://github.com/b4winckler/macvim/wiki/Building> They're pretty
> straightforward, except about which options to set and whether to
> install the MacVim document icons. My thought regarding the first is
> to go with the options used in the instructions on github.
>
> I'm unclear about the last two items under "enabling extra features,"
> i.e., "universal binary" and "Mac OS X SDK version." Do I need to even
> bother about them?

No. Don't bother unless you want to distribute a MacVim that can run on
other people's machines.

> I'm unfamiliar with the document icons. I don't know whether I have
> them with my current version or not. Should they be included?

I wouldn't bother. MacVim contains prebuilt icons (or you can copy them
from a snapshot if they're not in the repository).

> Any cautions about things not made explicit in the instructions,
> taking into consideration my relative naiveté, would be appreciated.

There's not a lot that can go wrong. You should be OK.

If it helps, here are the build commands I use, which I run in a
directory which is a clone of the MacVim repository (actually, it's a
Mercurial clone of MacVim's Git repository with some patches applied,
but that shouldn't make any difference!). Note that because I use
MacPorts (and have their ports of python, etc. installed), I have the
/opt/local stuff.

cd src
./configure "LDFLAGS=-L/opt/local/lib" \
--with-modified-by="Ben Schmidt et al." \
--with-features=huge --enable-gui=macvim \
--enable-pythoninterp --enable-perlinterp --enable-rubyinterp \
--enable-tclinterp --enable-cscope && \
make clean
make
rm -rf /Applications/MacVim.app &&
ditto MacVim/build/Release/MacVim.app /Applications/MacVim.app

When I want a later version, I just pull the latest changes into my repository,
update my working directory, and run the same build commands again.

Ben.



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