My script to build FPC 3.2.x under Linux

[Roland57]

Hello everybody.

I made a script to build FPC 3.2.x under Linux. I paste it here, in case someone would find it useful or would have improvements to suggest.

I chose to build the fixes_3_2 branch of GitLab repository. I use the compiler available with my distribution (Mageia), that is FPC 3.2.2.

Code: Bash  [Select][+][-]

1. # build-fpc.sh
2.  
3. BRANCH=fixes_3_2
4. URL=https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/fpc/source.git
5.  
6. RELDIR=apps/fpc
7. DIR=$HOME/$RELDIR
8.  
9. git clone --single-branch --depth 1 --branch $BRANCH $URL $DIR
10.  
11. cd $DIR
12.  
13. make all
14.  
15. utils/fpcmkcfg/bin/x86_64-linux/fpcmkcfg -d basepath=$DIR > $DIR/compiler/ppcx64.cfg
16.  
17. SCRIPT=$HOME/.local/bin/fpc32
18.  
19. cat > $SCRIPT << EOF
20. FPC=\$HOME/$RELDIR/compiler/ppcx64
21. \$FPC -n @\$FPC.cfg \$*
22. EOF
23.  
24. chmod +x $SCRIPT
25.  
26. fpc32 -iW

The script works:

$ sh build-fpc.sh
...
3.2.3

But when I try to compile a simple program, I get this error:

$ fpc32 hello.pas
Free Pascal Compiler version 3.2.3 [2026/06/15] for x86_64
Copyright (c) 1993-2026 by Florian Klaempfl and others
Target OS: Linux for x86-64
Compiling hello.pas
Fatal: Can't find unit system used by Program
Fatal: Compilation aborted

I have to do the following correction in configuration file (ppcx64.cfg):

# searchpath for units and other system dependent things
#-Fu/home/roland/apps/fpc/units/$fpctarget
#-Fu/home/roland/apps/fpc/units/$fpctarget/*
#-Fu/home/roland/apps/fpc/units/$fpctarget/rtl
-Fu/home/roland/apps/fpc/rtl/units/$fpctarget
-Fu/home/roland/apps/fpc/rtl/units/$fpctarget/*
-Fu/home/roland/apps/fpc/rtl/units/$fpctarget/rtl

After that, I can compile my simple program.

$ fpc32 hello.pas
Free Pascal Compiler version 3.2.3 [2026/06/15] for x86_64
Copyright (c) 1993-2026 by Florian Klaempfl and others
Target OS: Linux for x86-64
Compiling hello.pas
Linking hello
28 lines compiled, 0.2 sec

[Roland57]

So I appended this line to my script:

Code: Bash  [Select][+][-]

1. sed -i 's|fpc/units|fpc/rtl/units|g' $DIR/compiler/ppcx64.cfg

But now, if I want to use, for example, the RegExpr unit, it is not found. So I had to append this in the configuration file:

-Fu/home/roland/apps/fpc/packages/regexpr/units/$fpctarget

This also seems to work:

-Fu/home/roland/apps/fpc/packages/*/units/$fpctarget

I guess I shouldn't have to edit manually the configuration file. 

I attach the current version of my script.

[Fred vS]

I guess I shouldn't have to edit manually the configuration file. 

Perhaps it's time for fpcmkcfg to receive a major update... 

[marcov]

Roland57 doesn't install, so he manually crafts paths into the source repositories units dirs. 

This is not supported, the normal procedure is to "make install" the units.

[Roland57]

This is not supported, the normal procedure is to "make install" the units.

I see. Thank you for the explanation.

[dbannon]

https://github.com/davidbannon/FPC_Laz_Install/blob/main/compile_fpc.bash

and, a companion script that installs the pre-made binaries AND sets up paths etc,

https://github.com/davidbannon/FPC_Laz_Install/blob/main/fpc-tar.bash

Its called 'tar' because it works with tar-balls of precompiled binaries from same github site.

Davo

[Roland57]

@dbannon

Interesting, thank you.