Version 1 of I cannot get Tcl (or an extension) to compile

Purpose: Document common problems attempting to compile Tcl or some extension.

  I. When I run configure I get:

     loading cache ./config.cache
     checking for ranlib... :
     checking whether cross-compiling... yes
                        .
                        .

Well, I would point you to some threads at http://www.deja.com/ , (You can usually trim most of the junk out of a Deja pathname, as it seems to usually be related to the search that lead you to the info, and not the thread itself - DKF) but they use such bizarre pathnames that it causes Wiki to have heartburn. So here's what I can tell you:

The cross-compiling yes message is generally trouble. Cross-compiling is a feature of at least gcc (and perhaps other compilers as well) where executable code for platform A is generated on platform B. The reason that tests cannot be run is that in general processor B can't execute code for processor A. For instance, if your SGI computer/compiler were generating MSDOS executable code, it is unlikely that configure would know how to run MSDOS code.

Other reasons configure think it's cross-compiling:

licensing difficulties: the compiler is installed, but doesn't generate legit objects because it's somehow disabled
unclean source directory: if

      a.  the source tree is NFS-mounted from a foreign OS, or
      b.  someone duplicated a source tree from a foreign OS, there will
          often be enough configuration information from the foreign OS
          to make configure think it's cross-compiling

dueling compilers: if there are a couple of compilers present (/usr/ucb/cc, /bin/cc, /usr/local/bin/gcc), and your PATH is weird enough to trigger a configure misfeature, configure will be confused about what it's doing, and collapse in the direction of cross-compilation.

JC, regarding the heartburn mentioned above: see the archive of *-URL messages for pointers to deja.com which work: http://www.purl.org/mini/cgi-bin/url/ (like [L1 ] or [L2 ]).