Building NetHack using the Visual Studio nmake from the command line

Prerequisite Requirements:

  o Visual Studio Community Edition
        A copy of Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition needs to
        be installed on your machine. See:
        https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/
  o Lua
        NetHack 3.7 for Windows requires 3rd party Lua source that is not part
        of the NetHack distribution or repository.

        A windows cmd command procedure for fetching prerequisite sources
        is available, and can be run as follows from the top of the
        NetHack source tree to obtain lua:
            sys\windows\fetch.cmd lua
  o pdcursesmod (Only required if curses interface support is desired)
        If you want to include curses interface support in NetHack 3.7 for
        3rd part pdcursesmod source code is required and is not part of the
        NetHack distribution or repository.

        A windows cmd command procedure for fetching prerequisite
        sources is available, and can be run as follows from the top of
        the NetHack source tree to obtain pdcursesmod:
            sys\windows\fetch.cmd pdcursesmod

The build Makefiles and procedures produce two executables:
    a. A TTY and curses version of NetHack in nethack.exe
    b. A Windows and curses graphical version in nethackw.exe.

You can use one of the following build environments:

/---------------------------------------------\
|    Directories for a Windows NetHack build  |
\---------------------------------------------/

               (NetHack-top)
                     |
  +-----+------+-----+-------+-----------+-----------+-----~-----+------+
  |     |      |     |       |           |           |           |      |
 dat   doc  include lib     src         sys         win    submodules  util
                     |                   |           |           |
               +----------+          +------+      +----+     +----+
               |          |          |      |      |    |     |    |
               |          |          |      |      |    |     |    |
           lua-5.4.6  pdcursesmod  share windows  tty  win32 lua pdcursesmod
                                                  |
                                                  vs
                                                  |
    +----------+-------+--------+--------+-----------+-------+-----+------+
    |          |       |        |        |           |       |     |      |
 makedefs NetHack NetHackW PDCurses PDCursesGui tile2bmp tilemap tiles uudecode


/-----------------------------------------------------------\
| Building From the Command Line Using nmake from one of the |
| Visual Studio Community Editions                           |
\-----------------------------------------------------------/

Building

Two different versions of NetHack will be built for Windows from the
command line using the Makefile approach:
    A tty port utilizing the Win32 Console I/O subsystem Console,
    and a curses interface in an executabled called NetHack.exe.
        NetHack
    A Win32 native port built on the Windows API Graphical NetHack,
    and graphical curses in an executable called NetHackW.exe.

The Makefile configurations will build both; NetHack.exe and NetHackW.exe
and will be able to use the same datafiles, save files and bones files.

Since the last official release of NetHack, compilers and computer
architectures have evolved and you can now choose whether to build
a 32-bit x86 version, or a 64-bit x64 version.  The default Makefile
is set up for a 32-bit x86 version, but that's only because it will
run on the most number of existing Windows environments. Change it if you
want. Be aware that NetHack's save files and bones files in the 3.7.0
release have not yet evolved enough to allow them to interchange between
the 32-bit version and the 64-bit version (or between different platforms).
That may change in future.

I. Dispelling the Myths:

    Compiling NetHack for Windows is not as easy as it sounds, nor as hard
    as it looks, however it will behoove you to read this entire section
    through before beginning the task.

    We have provided a Visual Studio nmake Makefile.make in
    sys/windows/Makefile.nmake, which you use from the Windows command
    line.


II. To compile your copy of NetHack on a Windows machine:

Setting Up

1.  Change your current directory to the sys\windows subfolder of the nethack
    source tree, if you are at the top of the NetHack source tree.
        cd sys\windows.

2.  Execute .\nhsetup.bat to place copies of the Makefiles in
    the src subfolder. The file sys\windows\Makefile.nmake will copied
    to a file src\Makefile.
        .\nhsetup.bat

3.  Change your current directory to the src subfolder of the nethack
    source tree. The following command assumes you are still in the
    sys\windows folder from steps #1 and #2 above:
        cd ..\..\src

Compiling

4.  Now that everything is set up, you should be ready to start the
    process.

    Your current directory should be the NetHack src directory.

    Issue these following command:
	    nmake package

    If all goes well, intermediate NetHack files will be placed in the
    binary subfolder of the NetHack tree, and the final NetHack package
    for windows will be in the package subfolder.

Notes:

1.  To rebuild NetHack after changing something, change your current directory
    to src and issue the appropriate command for your compiler:

    For Microsoft compiler:
        nmake package

2.  Depending on the build and compiler and tools used above, the
    package produced by the build will be either contain:
      - a 32-bit (x86) .exe file,
        which should run on any recent Win32 environment.
    or
      - a 64-bit (x64) .exe file,
        which should run on any 64-bit Windows O/S.

    **Note**: saved games and bones files are NOT compatible between the
    32-bit and the 64-bit versions at this time.