unable to build binutils for my cross compiler - operating-system

Question

i am trying to build binutils 2.19.1 with mingw/msys using following commands:
export PREFIX=/usr/local/cross
export TARGET=i586-elf
cd /usr/src
mkdir build-binutils
cd /usr/src/build-binutils
../binutils-x.xx/configure --target=$TARGET --prefix=$PREFIX --disable-nls
make all
make install
and im getting following errors:
/bin/sh ./libtool --tag=CC --mode=compile gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I../../binuti
ls-2.19.1/bfd -I. -D__USE_MINGW_FSEEK -I. -I../../binutils-2.19.1/bfd -I../..
/binutils-2.19.1/bfd/../include -W -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-proto
types -Wno-format -Werror -g -O2 -D__USE_MINGW_ACCESS -c -o archive.lo ../../bin
utils-2.19.1/bfd/archive.c
./libtool: line 2258: cygpath: command not found
libtool: compile: gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I../../binutils-2.19.1/bfd -I. -D__U
SE_MINGW_FSEEK -I. -I../../binutils-2.19.1/bfd -I../../binutils-2.19.1/bfd/../in
clude -W -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wno-format -Werror -g -
O2 -D__USE_MINGW_ACCESS -c "" -o archive.o
gcc.exe: error: : No such file or directory
gcc.exe: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.
make[3]: *** [archive.lo] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/build-binutils/bfd'
make[2]: *** [install-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/build-binutils/bfd'
make[1]: *** [install-bfd] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/build-binutils'
make: *** [install] Error 2
/x.sh: line 8: ../gcc-4.5.0/configure: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target `all-gcc'. Stop.
make: *** No rule to make target `install-gcc'. Stop.
i am getting the same error even for the diff binutils version,i have tried binutils-2.19.1, 2.22.0, 2.23.1
so what can be the problem ??
also my mingw's gcc compiler version is 4.6.2
i've also tried the command
make CFLAGS="-Os -w"
bt still the same problem persists

Answer 1

I'm getting a similar error ("cygpath: command not found"), but with newer versions. FWICT there is a line within binutils that assumes that Cygwin is present, although I didn't see any notes in the build instructions saying that Cygwin was required (I might have missed it, though).
I suppose the correct approach would be to install Cygwin, but I'm not sure if that will interfere with Mingw in other ways. It looks like binutils is just trying to use cygpath to convert between O/S path naming conventions, so I got around this problem by creating a little dummy cygpath shell script:
#options described at http://cygwin-lite.sourceforge.net/html/cygpath.html
#echo "MISSING CYGPATH"
if [ "x$1" == "x-w" ]
then
echo $2 #just echo path name back as-is
else
read -p "MISSING CYGPATH. PARAMS WERE: 1=$1 2=$2 3=$3 4=$4 5=$5"
fi
I placed this on the PATH so binutils could find it, instead of getting an error during the build. This script just echoes the path name back as-is (for the path renaming scenario), since Windows seems to be able to understand Unix-style paths anyways these days (and I was running on Windows). For anything else, this script will pause and display the first few command line parameters, to provide some hints as to what further functionality is needed.
HTH someone get a little farther