path: root/README.win32

General
=======

For more information about the port or GLib, GTk+ and the GIMP to
native Windows, and pre-built binaries (DLLs), surf to
http://www.gimp.org/win32/ . "Native" means that we use the Win32 API
only, and no POSIX (Unix) emulation layer except that provided by the
Microsoft runtime C library, and a pthreads emulation library.

To build GLib on Win32, you can use either gcc or the Microsoft
compiler and tools. Both the compiler from MSVC 5.0 and from MSVC 6.0
have been used successfully.

But note that to just *use* GLib on Windows, there is no need to build
it, prebuilt DLLs are available from the webiste above.

With gcc I mean gcc-2.95.2 as distributed by Mumit Khan, either as a
mingw version (preferred), or running under cygwin. To successfully
use gcc, follow the instructions below. We want to use gcc
-mno-cygwin, i.e. produce executables (.exe and .dll files) that do
*not* require the cygwin runtime library. This is called "mingw".  I
also use the -fnative-struct flag, which means that in order to use
the prebuilt DLLs (especially of GTK+), you *must* also use that flag.
(This flag means that the struct layout is identical to that used by
MSVC.)

If you would want to use the cygwin tools to generate a GLib that
*does* use the cygwin runtime, the normal Unix configuration method
should work as if on Unix. Note that successfully producing shared
libraries (DLLs) most probably requires you to have a very new libtool
(from March 2001), and to replace the libtool.m4 included in
acinclude.m4 with the new one, and to replace ltmain.sh.

It is also possible to use the ./configure mechanism when building for
a mingw configuration. You should be running cygwin for the configure
script to work, obviously. The same libtool issue has to be taken into
account as when building for Cygwin: You most probably should have a
libtool from March 2001 or so, and replace libtool.m4 (in
acinclude.m4) and ltmain.sh.

The following preprocessor macros are used for conditional compilation
related to Win32:

- G_OS_WIN32 is defined when compiling for Win32, *and* without
  any POSIX emulation, other that to the extent provided by the
  bundled Microsoft C library (msvcrt.dll) and the pthreads-win32
  library. For instance, pathnames are in the native Windows syntax.

- G_WITH_CYGWIN is defined if compiling for the Cygwin
  environment. Note that G_OS_WIN32 is *not* defined in that case, as
  Cygwin is supposed to behave like Unix. G_OS_UNIX *is* defined when
  compiling for Cygwin.

- G_PLATFORM_WIN32 is defined when either G_OS_WIN32 or G_WITH_CYGWIN
  is defined.

The Win32 port of GLib and related software uses only G_OS_WIN32. As
G_OS_WIN32 is defined in glibconfig.h, it is available to all source
files that use GLib (or GTk+, which uses GLib).

Additionally, there are the compiler-specific macros:
- __GNUC__ is defined when using GCC
- _MSC_VER is defined when using the Microsoft compiler

G_OS_WIN32 implies using the Microsoft C runtime MSVCRT.DLL. GLib or
software using it is not known to work with the older CRTDLL.DLL
runtime.

Building software that use GLib or GTk+
=======================================

Even building software that just *use* GLib or GTk+ also require to
have the right compiler set up the right way, so if you intend to use
gcc, follow the relevant instructions below in that case, too.

Pthreads library
================

Before building you must get the pthreads library for Win32 from
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/pthreads-win32/. The pthreads-win32
snapshot from 1999-05-30 is the one that should be used. Edit the
location of the pthreads library and include files in makefile.msc or
makefile.mingw. The pthreads distribution includes the precompiled dll
and import libraries both for MSVC and gcc. Later versions might also
work.

The pthreads for Win32 package that the thread support uses supposedly
isn't quite ready yet, and thus threads stuff should not be relied
upon for anything serious.

Libiconv
========

Before building GLib you must also have the libiconv library, either
from the same website mentioned above, or from it's homepage at
http://clisp.cons.org/~haible/packages-libiconv.html.

Where are the makefiles?
========================

If you are building from a CVS snapshot, you will not have any
makefile.mingw or makefile.msc file. You should copy the corresponding
makefile.mingw.in or makefile.msc.in file to that name, and edit the
line that sets GLIB_VER to the correct version number.

This is done automatically when an official GLib source distribution
package is built.

Building GLib with gcc
======================

I use the latest gcc, gcc-2.95.2. Version 2.95 will most probably also
work.

You can either use gcc running on cygwin, or the "pure" mingw
gcc. Using the latter is much easier. 

Just fetch the latest version of gcc for mingw and the msvcrt runtime,
currently from
ftp://ftp.nanotech.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/snapshots/gcc-2.95.2-1/
.

Download the three zip archives: the gcc-<version>-msvcrt,
mingw-msvcrt-<timestamp> and binutils-<timestamp>-msvcrt, and unpack
them in a suitable directory.

Set up your PATH so that the gcc from the bin directory that got
created above is the one that gets used. You can skip steps 1--5
below. Even if you run the mingw gcc, you still want to have cygwin to
run make in.

If you want to run a cygwin-based gcc, it gets a bit more
complicated. We still want gcc to produce code that does not use
cygwin, but the msvcrt runtime. The way to do this can be quite
complex, and the instructions are not included here. Contact me if you
want some possibly outdated, misleading and incomplete advice.

Building with MSVC
==================

If using the Microsoft toolchain, build with `nmake -f
makefile.msc`. Install with `nmake -f makefile.msc install`. 

--Tor Lillqvist <tml@iki.fi>