Cannot build VirtualBox.chm => Fixed in SVN

[mYse|f]

According to ​this past forum topic, it should be possible to build VirtualBox.chm from OSE sources provided that VBOX_WITH_DOCS_CHM is set to "1", and VBOX_PATH_HTML_HELP_WORKSHOP targets the folder holding the hhc.exe binary (installed through Wine). However, when I try to do so, the compilation fails with the following error message:

kmk: *** No rule to make target `/media/trisquel/NewVirtualDisk1/VirtualBox-5.0.2/doc/manual/common-html-formatcfg.xsl', needed by `/media/trisquel/NewVirtualDisk1/VirtualBox-5.0.2/out/debian/builddir/obj/manual/en_US/docbook-htmlhelp-formatcfg.xsl'. Stop.

[mYse|f]

Screenshot of the Terminal window

[Frank Mehnert]

Thanks for the report. These missing files will be available with the tarball of the next 5.0.x maintenance release.

[mYse|f]

Thank you very much! Until then, would it be possible to include the missing file in the SVN repository so I could try to make a build for the current release (and report back if there's any problem)?

As a side note, have you tried to use ​Free Pascal's chmcmd tool instead of the proprietary HTML Help Workshop to compile the VirtualBox.chm file from source?

​http://packages.ubuntu.com/fp-utils-2.6.4

[mYse|f]

Fixed in SVN

I don't see the file there yet.

[Frank Mehnert]

They should be there now, try again and let me know if anything else is missing. Regarding chmcmd, we didn't try this yet.

[mYse|f]

After I included the missing file and satisfied a few extra dependencies, I've only encountered the issue described ​in this thread which I was able to solve by commenting out the problematic lines in Makefile.kmk. However, I was unable to get the HTML Help Workshop working despite my multiple attempts so I cannot tell whether it's possible to use it or not. On the contrary, I was able to successfully build VirtualBox.chm using Free Pascal's CHM compiler (which was my initial goal anyway) and so I adapted the Makefile.kmk to use it instead.

Note: The last comment on the linked page says that there are some missing files that has now been included in the SVN repository. Actually, there's a lot more (mostly third-party and non-OSE stuff) but so far I was able to find workarounds for most of them.

[mYse|f]

The error message that appears when building with CHM documentation

[mYse|f]

Building VirtualBox with the CHM documentation using Free Pascal's CHM compiler

[mYse|f]

Documentation created with Free Pascal's CHM compiler (1 of 5)

[mYse|f]

Documentation created with Free Pascal's CHM compiler (2 of 5)

[mYse|f]

Documentation created with Free Pascal's CHM compiler (3 of 5)

[mYse|f]

Documentation created with Free Pascal's CHM compiler (4 of 5)

[mYse|f]

Documentation created with Free Pascal's CHM compiler (5 of 5)

[Frank Mehnert]

The error about missing docbook.dtd is triggered because either DocBook is not installed or not found. VBOX_PATH_DOCBOOK_DTD must be set to the correct path. See doc/manual/Makefile.kmk lines 91 ff.

[mYse|f]

Setting VBOX_PATH_DOCBOOK_DTD to http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5 did the trick. Thanks!

[sergiomb]

Thanks , build worked on Fedora 21, 22, 23 and rawhide without internet access.

I set :

VBOX_PATH_DOCBOOK_DTD=/usr/share/sgml/docbook/xml-dtd-4.5/

and added :

BuildRequires: docbook-dtds

[sergiomb]

Replying to mYse|f:

As a side note, have you tried to use ​Free Pascal's chmcmd tool instead of the proprietary HTML Help Workshop to compile the VirtualBox.chm file from source?

​http://packages.ubuntu.com/fp-utils-2.6.4

Hello, how you do that ? have you any documentation about that ?

I tried build with VBOX_WITH_DOCS_CHM=1 but :

# we can't build CHM DOCS we need hhc.exe which is not in source and we need
# also install wine:
# wine: cannot find
# '/builddir/build/BUILD/VirtualBox-5.1.6/tools/win.x86/HTML_Help_Workshop/v1.3//hhc.exe'

[Michael Thayer]

This. But it does not generate the CHM index file, so it is not a proper replacement for hhc.

Index: doc/manual/Makefile.kmk
===================================================================
--- doc/manual/Makefile.kmk	(revision 110816)
+++ doc/manual/Makefile.kmk	(working copy)
@@ -132,10 +132,9 @@
  VBOX_PDFLATEX_CMD         = pdflatex $(VBOX_PDFLATEX_HALT) -interaction $(VBOX_PDFLATEX_INTERACTION)
 endif
 
-# Windows HTML Help Workshop compiler (stupid thing always returns an error!)
-VBOX_HHC = -$(EXEC_X86_WIN32) $(VBOX_PATH_HTML_HELP_WORKSHOP)/hhc.exe
+# Free Pascal chm compiler
+VBOX_HHC = chmcmd
 
-
 # Additional xsltproc options when generating
 VBOX_HTMLHELP_OPTS ?=
 
@@ -729,7 +728,7 @@
 		$(foreach f,$(VBOX_MANUAL_LANGUAGES),$(addprefix $(VBOX_PATH_MANUAL_OUTBASE)/$f/HTMLHelp/,$(VBOX_MANUAL_PNG_FILES_$(f))))
 	$(call MSG_L1,hhc $<,=> $@)
 	$(QUIET)$(RM) -f $@
-	$(QUIET)$(VBOX_HHC) $(subst /,\\,$<)
+	$(QUIET)cd $(dir $<); $(VBOX_HHC) $<; chmod 0644 $@
 
  # Prepare the XSL file for our title page, htmlhelp variant.
  $(foreach f,$(VBOX_MANUAL_LANGUAGES),$(VBOX_PATH_MANUAL_OUTBASE)/$f/titlepage-htmlhelp.xsl): \
@@ -752,7 +751,7 @@
 	$(QUIET)$(MKDIR) -p $(@D)
 	$(QUIET)$(VBOX_XSLTPROC_WITH_CAT) --output $(@D)/ \
 		--stringparam htmlhelp.chm \
-		$(subst /,\\,$(@D)/../VirtualBox.chm) \
+		$(@D)/../VirtualBox.chm \
 		$(HTMLHELPOPTS) $(@D)/../docbook-htmlhelp-formatcfg.xsl \
 		$<