1 Tor Lillqvist <tml@iki.fi>
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2 Hans Breuer <hans@breuer.org>
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4 Note that this document is not really maintained in a serious
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5 fashion. Lots of information here might be misleading or outdated. You
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8 The general parts, and the section about gcc and autoconfiscated
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9 build, and about a Visual Studio build are by Tor Lillqvist. The
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10 sections about MSVC build with NMAKE is by Hans Breuer.
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15 For prebuilt binaries (DLLs and EXEs) and developer packages (headers,
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16 import libraries) of GLib, Pango, GTK+ etc for Windows, go to
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17 http://www.gtk.org/download-windows.html . They are for "native"
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18 Windows meaning they use the Win32 API and Microsoft C runtime library
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19 only. No POSIX (Unix) emulation layer like Cygwin in involved.
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21 To build GLib on Win32, you can use either gcc ("mingw") or the
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22 Microsoft compiler and tools. For the latter, MSVC6 and later have
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23 been used successfully. Also the Digital Mars C/C++ compiler has
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24 reportedly been used.
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26 You can also cross-compile GLib for Windows from Linux using the
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27 cross-compiling mingw packages for your distro.
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29 Note that to just *use* GLib on Windows, there is no need to build it
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32 On Windows setting up a correct build environment can be quite a task,
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33 especially if you are used to just type "./configure; make" on Linux,
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34 and expect things to work as smoothly on Windows.
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36 The following preprocessor macros are to be used for conditional
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37 compilation related to Win32 in GLib-using code:
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39 - G_OS_WIN32 is defined when compiling for native Win32, without
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40 any POSIX emulation, other than to the extent provided by the
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41 bundled Microsoft C library (msvcr*.dll).
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43 - G_WITH_CYGWIN is defined if compiling for the Cygwin
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44 environment. Note that G_OS_WIN32 is *not* defined in that case, as
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45 Cygwin is supposed to behave like Unix. G_OS_UNIX *is* defined by a GLib
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48 - G_PLATFORM_WIN32 is defined when either G_OS_WIN32 or G_WITH_CYGWIN
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51 These macros are defined in glibconfig.h, and are thus available in
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52 all source files that include <glib.h>.
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54 Additionally, there are the compiler-specific macros:
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55 - __GNUC__ is defined when using gcc
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56 - _MSC_VER is defined when using the Microsoft compiler
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57 - __DMC__ is defined when using the Digital Mars C/C++ compiler
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59 G_OS_WIN32 implies using the Microsoft C runtime, normally
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60 msvcrt.dll. GLib is not known to work with the older crtdll.dll
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61 runtime, or the static Microsoft C runtime libraries libc.lib and
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62 libcmt.lib. It apparently does work with the debugging version of
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63 msvcrt.dll, msvcrtd.dll. If compiled with Microsoft compilers newer
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64 than MSVC6, it also works with their compiler-specific runtimes, like
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65 msvcr70.dll or msvcr80.dll. Please note that it's non totally clear if
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66 you would be allowed by the license to distrubute a GLib linked to
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67 msvcr70.dll or msvcr80.dll, as those are not part of the operating
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68 system, but of the MSVC product. msvcrt.dll is part of Windows.
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70 For people using Visual Studio 2005 or later:
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72 If you are building GLib-based libraries or applications, or GLib itself
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73 and you see a C4819 error (or warning, before C4819 is treated as an error
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74 in msvc_recommended_pragmas.h), please be advised that this error/warning should
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75 not be disregarded, as this likely means portions of the build is not being
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76 done correctly, as this is an issue of Visual Studio running on CJK (East Asian)
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77 locales. This is an issue that also affects builds of other projects, such as
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78 QT, Firefox, LibreOffice/OpenOffice, Pango and GTK+, along with many other projects.
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80 To overcome this problem, please set your system's locale setting for non-Unicode to
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81 English (United States), reboot, and restart the build, and the code should build
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82 normally. See also this GNOME Wiki page [1] that gives a bit further info on this.
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84 Building software that use GLib or GTK+
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85 =======================================
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87 Building software that just *uses* GLib or GTK+ also require to have
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88 the right compiler set up the right way. If you intend to use gcc,
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89 follow the relevant instructions below in that case, too.
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91 Tor uses gcc with the -mms-bitfields flag which means that in order to
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92 use the prebuilt DLLs (especially of GTK+), if you compile your code
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93 with gcc, you *must* also use that flag. This flag means that the
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94 struct layout rules are identical to those used by MSVC. This is
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95 essential if the same DLLs are to be usable both from gcc- and
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96 MSVC-compiled code. Such compatibility is desirable.
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98 When using the prebuilt GLib DLLs that use msvcrt.dll from code that
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99 uses other C runtimes like for example msvcr70.dll, one should note
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100 that one cannot use such GLib API that take or returns file
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101 descriptors. On Windows, a file descriptor (the small integer as
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102 returned by open() and handled by related functions, and included in
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103 the FILE struct) is an index into a table local to the C runtime
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104 DLL. A file descriptor in one C runtime DLL does not have the same
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105 meaning in another C runtime DLL.
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110 Again, first decide whether you really want to do this.
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112 Before building GLib you must also have a GNU gettext-runtime
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113 developer package. Get prebuilt binaries of gettext-runtime from
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114 http://www.gtk.org/download-windows.html .
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116 Autoconfiscated build (with gcc)
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117 ================================
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119 Tor uses gcc 3.4.5 and the rest of the mingw utilities, including MSYS
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120 from www.mingw.org. Somewhat earlier or later versions of gcc
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121 presumably also work fine.
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123 Using Cygwin's gcc with the -mno-cygwin switch is not recommended. In
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124 theory it should work, but Tor hasn't tested that lately. It can
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125 easily lead to confusing situations where one mixes headers for Cygwin
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126 from /usr/include with the headers for native software one really
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127 should use. Ditto for libraries.
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129 If you want to use mingw's gcc, install gcc, win32api, binutils and
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130 MSYS from www.mingw.org.
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132 Tor invokes configure using:
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134 CC='gcc -mtune=pentium3 -mthreads' CPPFLAGS='-I/opt/gnu/include' \
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135 LDFLAGS='-L/opt/gnu/lib -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base' CFLAGS=-O2 \
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136 ./configure --disable-gtk-doc --prefix=$TARGET
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138 The /opt/gnu mentioned contains the header files for GNU and (import)
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139 libraries for GNU libintl. The build scripts used to produce the
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140 prebuilt binaries are included in the "dev" packages.
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142 Please note that the ./configure mechanism should not blindly be used
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143 to build a GLib to be distributed to other developers because it
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144 produces a compiler-dependent glibconfig.h. For instance, the typedef
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145 for gint64 is long long with gcc, but __int64 with MSVC.
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147 Except for this and a few other minor issues, there shouldn't be any
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148 reason to distribute separate GLib headers and DLLs for gcc and MSVC6
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149 users, as the compilers generate code that uses the same C runtime
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152 The DLL generated by either compiler is binary compatible with the
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153 other one. Thus one either has to manually edit glibconfig.h
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154 afterwards, or use the supplied glibconfig.h.win32 which has been
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155 produced by running configure twice, once using gcc and once using
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156 MSVC, and merging the resulting files with diff -D.
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158 For MSVC7 and later (Visual C++ .NET 2003, Visual C++ 2005, Visual C++
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159 2008 etc) it is preferred to use specific builds of GLib DLLs that use
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160 the same C runtime as the code that uses GLib. Such DLLs should be
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161 named differently than the ones that use msvcrt.dll.
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163 For GLib, the DLL that uses msvcrt.dll is called libglib-2.0-0.dll,
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164 and the import libraries libglib-2.0.dll.a and glib-2.0.lib. Note that
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165 the "2.0" is part of the "basename" of the library, it is not
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166 something that libtool has added. The -0 suffix is added by libtool
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167 and is the value of "LT_CURRENT - LT_AGE". The 0 should *not* be
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168 thought to be part of the version number of GLib. The LT_CURRENT -
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169 LT_AGE value will on purpose be kept as zero as long as binary
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170 compatibility is maintained. For the gory details, see configure.ac
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171 and libtool documentation.
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173 Building with Visual Studio
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174 ===========================
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176 A more detailed outline of building GLib with its dependencies can
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177 now be found on the GNOME wiki:
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179 https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GTK%2B/Win32/MSVCCompilationOfGTKStack
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181 Please do not build GLib in paths that contain spaces in them, as
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182 this may cause problems during compilation and during usage of the
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185 In an unpacked tarball, you will find in build\win32\vs9 (VS 2008) and
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186 build\win32\vs10 (VS 2010) a solution file that can be used to build
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187 the GLib DLLs and some auxiliary programs under VS 2008 and VS 2010
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188 (Express Edition will suffice with the needed dependencies) respectively.
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189 Read the README.txt file in those folders for more
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190 information. Note that you will need a libintl implementation, zlib, and
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193 If you are building from a GIT checkout, you will first need to use some
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194 Unix-like environment or run win32/setup.py,
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195 which will expand the VS 2008/2010 project files, the DLL resouce files and
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196 other miscellanious files required for the build. Run win32/setup.py
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199 $python win32/setup.py --perl path_to_your_perl.exe
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201 for more usage on this script, run
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202 $python win32/setup.py -h/--help
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204 Building with MSVC and NMAKE
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205 ============================
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207 If you are building from a GIT snapshot, you will not have all
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208 makefile.msc files. You should copy the corresponding makefile.msc.in
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209 file to that name, and replace any @...@ strings with the correct
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210 value (or use the python script de-in.py from http://hans.breuer.org/gtk/de-in.py).
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212 This is done automatically when an official GLib source distribution
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213 package is built, so if you get GLib from a source distribution
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214 package, there should be makefile.msc files ready to use (possibly after some
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217 The hand-written makefile.msc files, and the stuff in the "build"
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218 subdirectory, produce DLLs and import libraries that match what the
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219 so-called autoconfiscated build produces.
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221 All the MSVC makefiles are for the command line build with nmake. If
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222 you want to use the VC-UI you can simply create wrapper .dsp makefiles
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223 (read the VC docs how to do so).
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225 Some modules may require Perl to auto-generate files. The goal (at
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226 least Hans's) is to not require any more tools. Of course you need
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227 the Microsoft Platform SDK in a recent enough - but not too recent - version.
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228 The last PSDK for Visual Studio 6 is:
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229 http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/platformsdk/sdkupdate/psdk-full.htm
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230 At least install the Core SDK, maybe also the "Tablet PC SDK".
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235 nmake -f makefile.msc
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237 nmake -f makefile.msc DEBUG=1
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240 The former will create 'release' versions of the DLLs. If you
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241 plan to distribute you DLLs please use this command. The latter
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242 will create DLLs with debug information _and_ link them with
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243 msvcrtd.dll instead of msvcrt.dll.
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244 Beware: There are known problems with mixing DLLs in one
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245 application, which are build against different runtimes.
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246 Especially the index-to-file mapping used by 'unix-style' file
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247 operation - _open() _pipe() etc. - breaks sometimes in strange
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248 ways (for example the Gimp plug-in communication).
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251 Required libraries (not build from svn)
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253 libintl (gnu-intl),
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255 are available pre-built from the website mentioned above.
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259 Instead of the Unix and auto* way of tracking versions and resolving
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260 dependencies (configure; make; make install) involving autoconf,
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261 automake, libtool and friends the MSVC build uses a different
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264 The core of it's versioning is the file build/win32/module.defs.
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265 It contains entries of the form MODULE_VER, e.g.:
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270 and the placement of these modules defined as MODULE, e.g.:
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273 LIBICONV = $(TOP)/libiconv-$(LIBICONV_VER)
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275 whereas TOP is defined as the relative path from the respective
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276 module directory to your top build directory. Every makefile.msc
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277 needs to define TOP before including the common make file part
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278 make.msc, which than includes module.defs, like:
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281 !INCLUDE $(TOP)/glib/build/win32/make.msc
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283 (Taken from gtk+/gdk/makefile.msc)
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285 With this provision it is possible to create almost placement
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286 independent makefiles without requiring to 'install' the libraries and
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287 headers into a common place (as it is done on Unix, and as Tor does
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288 when producing his zipfiles with prebuilt GLib, GTK+ etc).
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292 config.h.win32.in : @XXX_MAJOR_VERSION@ needs to be replaced by
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293 the current version/build number. The resulting file is to be saved
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294 as 'config.h.win32'. This should be automatically done if a package
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295 gets build on the Unix platform.
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297 makefile.msc.in : @XXX_MAJOR_VERSION@ to be replaced. Save as
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300 <module>.def : every function which should be used from the outside of
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301 a dll needs to be marked for 'export'. It is common that one needs to change
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302 these files after some api changes occured. If there are variables to be
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303 exported another mechanism is needed, like :
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306 # ifdef GDK_COMPILATION
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307 # define GDKVAR __declspec(dllexport)
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309 # define GDKVAR extern __declspec(dllimport)
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312 # define GDKVAR extern
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317 Directory Structure
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318 -------------------
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319 all modules should be build in a common directory tree otherwise you
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320 need to adapt the file 'module.defs'. They are listed here in increasing
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321 dependencies order.
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323 <common rootdir without spaces>
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327 | +- build : [this module lives in the SVN root dir]
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329 | | .\module.defs : defines (relative) locations of the headers
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330 | | and libs and version numbers to be include
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332 | | .\make.msc : include by almost every 'makefile.msc'
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334 | | .\README.WIN32 : more information how to build
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335 | | .\glibconfig.h.win32.in : similar to config.h.win32.in
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336 | | .\makefile.msc : master makefile, sub dir makefiles should work
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340 | +- gthread : does _not_ depend on pthread anymore
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344 | +- pango : 'native' build does not require extra libs and
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345 | | includes the minimal required text renderer
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346 | | (there is also a currently slightly broken FreeType2
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347 | | based implementation for win32)
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348 | +- modules (not yet build)
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352 | .\makefile.msc : build here
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355 | | .\config.h.win32 : for all the below
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358 | | .\gdk_pixbuf.rc.in : version resource for the DLLs. Needs
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359 | | to be converted (filled with version info)
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360 | | as described above.
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363 | | | .\makefile.msc : some auto-generation is needed to build in the
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364 | | | in the subdirectory
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371 | .\makefile.msc : master makefile to build The Gimp. The makefiles
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372 | from the sub dirs should work stand alone, but than
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373 | the user needs to know the build order
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376 +- dia : additionally depends on libart_lgpl (in SVN)
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377 | and libxml2 ( see http://www.xmlsoft.org/ )
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384 [1]: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GTK%2B/Win32/MSVCCompilationOfGTKStack under "Preparations"
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