How to compile GRASS GIS on MS-Windows

There is a great wiki page that explains step-by-step procedures on how to compile GRASS GIS on MS-Windows, but it requires the installation of Visual Studio and installs compiled GRASS GIS into the OSGeo4W directory structure. Since I just wanted to compile and run it from the trunk repository, I needed to slightly modify the steps in the wiki page.

1   Install OSGeo4W

1. Download and run the OSGeo4W installer (32-bit or 64-bit)
2. Advanced Install, Next
3. Install from Internet, Next
4. C:\OSGeo4W (32-bit) or C:\OSGeo4W64 (64-bit), Next
5. Next
6. Direct Connection, Next
7. Select a download site, Next
8. Install the following packages:
   • cairo
   • gdal
   • geos
   • fftw
   • fftw-devel (32-bit only)
   • freetype-devel
   • freetype-devel-mingw (32-bit only)
   • iconv
   • libjpeg
   • liblas-devel
   • libpng
   • libpq
   • libtiff
   • libxdr
   • pdcurses
   • proj
   • regex-devel
   • sqlite3
   • zlib
   • zstd
   • zstd-devel
   • gdal-ecw
   • gdal-mrsid
   • wxpython
   • python-numpy

2   Install MSYS2

1. Download and run the MSYS2 installer (as of July 21, 2018, 32-bit or 64-bit)
2. Next
3. C:\msys32 (32-bit) or C:\msys64 (64-bit), Next
4. Next
5. Uncheck Run MSYS2 32bit now (32-bit) or Run MSYS2 64bit now (64-bit), Finish
6. Run MSYS2 MinGW 32-bit (32-bit) or MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit (64-bit)
7. Install the following packages (both 32-bit and 64-bit)

   pacman -S tar libintl make bison diffutils subversion dos2unix zip

8. Install these packages
   • 32-bit:

     pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-toolchain mingw-w64-i686-cairo mingw-w64-i686-python2-numpy mingw-w64-i686-sqlite3 mingw-w64-i686-xz mingw-w64-i686-lz4

   • 64-bit:

     pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain mingw-w64-x86_64-cairo mingw-w64-x86_64-python2-numpy mingw-w64-x86_64-sqlite3 mingw-w64-x86_64-xz mingw-w64-x86_64-lz4

3   Compile GRASS GIS

1. Add two export lines to ~/.bash_profile by running
   • 32-bit:

     cat <<EOT >> ~/.bash_profile
     export LC_ALL=C
     export PATH="$PATH:/c/osgeo4w/bin"
     EOT

   • 64-bit:

     cat <<EOT >> ~/.bash_profile
     export LC_ALL=C
     export PATH="$PATH:/c/osgeo4w64/bin"
     EOT

2. Source ~/.bash_profile

   . ~/.bash_profile

3. Checkout the GRASS GIS trunk repository

   mkdir -p ~/usr/grass
   cd ~/usr/grass
   svn checkout https://svn.osgeo.org/grass/grass/trunk

4. Download myconfigure.sh, mymake.sh, and mkbats.sh in ~/usr/grass
5. Configure and compile GRASS GIS

   cd ~/usr/grass/trunk
   ../myconfigure.sh
   ../mymake.sh

6. Create batch files for MS-Windows in ~/usr/grass/bin

   ../mkbats.sh

7. Create a shortcut to C:\msys64\home\USERNAME\usr\grass\bin\grass75svn.bat and change the icon to C:\msys64\home\USERNAME\usr\grass\trunk\mswindows\grass.icon

References

• Compiling GRASS on MS-Windows
• OSGeo4W
• MSYS2