From: Stuart Henderson <stu@spacehopper.org>
Subject: Re: Nim language and nimble
To: S V <nerfur@gmail.com>
Cc: ports@openbsd.org
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2026 10:50:08 +0100

On 2026/10/13 01:15, S V wrote:
> Hello, ports@!
> 
> When I try to use nimble install <package> it fails with make/gmake
> problem and it looks like it tries to download and build itself (nim).
> I was playing with different keys for nimble, but no success.
> 
> Is it port or I do something wrong?
> 
> 
> PS
> 
> nimble install webui
> Downloading Nim 2.2.12 from nim-lang.org

so nimble tries to build a new version of nim (and --useSystemNim seems
to be broken in the version of nimble used, possibly fixed in 0.24.0 but
my naive attempt at trying to update it failed)...

>       Info: /home/nerfur/.nimble/nimbinaries/nim-2.2.12.tar.xz already
> downloaded
>       Info: Compiling Nim 2.2.12 from source
> *** Parse error in /home/nerfur/.nimble/nimbinaries/csources_v3:
> Missing dependency operator (makefile:11)

...and it does that using the upstream distribution, which doesn't know
about using gmake instead of make.

> *** Parse error: Need an operator in 'endif' (makefile:13)
> Bad modifier: upper:]" "[:lower:]"')
> *** Parse error: Missing dependency operator (makefile:19)
> *** Parse error: Need an operator in 'else' (makefile:21)
> Bad modifier: upper:]" "[:lower:]"')
> *** Parse error: Need an operator in 'endif' (makefile:23)
> Bad modifier: upper:]" "[:lower:]"')
> *** Parse error: Missing dependency operator (makefile:25)
> *** Parse error: Need an operator in 'endif' (makefile:28)
> Bad modifier: upper:]" "[:lower:]"')
> *** Parse error: Missing dependency operator (makefile:29)
> ... etc ...

Not tested (and not ideal), but you might get somewhere like this

mkdir ~/gmake-as-make
ln -s /usr/local/bin/gmake ~/gmake-as-make/make
PATH=~/gmake-as-make:${PATH} nimble install webui