Tor Lillqvist <tml@iki.fi>

Hans Breuer <hans@breuer.org>



Note that this document is not really maintained in a serious

fashion. Lots of information here might be misleading or outdated. You

have been warned.



The general parts, and the section about gcc and autoconfiscated

build, and about a Visual Studio build are by Tor Lillqvist. The

sections about MSVC build with NMAKE is by Hans Breuer. 



General

=======



For prebuilt binaries (DLLs and EXEs) and developer packages (headers,

import libraries) of GLib, Pango, GTK+ etc for Windows, go to

http://www.gtk.org/download-windows.html . They are for "native"

Windows meaning they use the Win32 API and Microsoft C runtime library

only. No POSIX (Unix) emulation layer like Cygwin in involved.



To build GLib on Win32, you can use either gcc ("mingw") or the

Microsoft compiler and tools. For the latter, MSVC6 and later have

been used successfully. Also the Digital Mars C/C++ compiler has

reportedly been used.



You can also cross-compile GLib for Windows from Linux using the

cross-compiling mingw packages for your distro.



Note that to just *use* GLib on Windows, there is no need to build it

yourself.



On Windows setting up a correct build environment can be quite a task,

especially if you are used to just type "./configure; make" on Linux,

and expect things to work as smoothly on Windows.



The following preprocessor macros are to be used for conditional

compilation related to Win32 in GLib-using code:



- G_OS_WIN32 is defined when compiling for native Win32, without

  any POSIX emulation, other than to the extent provided by the

  bundled Microsoft C library (msvcr*.dll).



- 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 by a GLib

  for Cygwin.



- G_PLATFORM_WIN32 is defined when either G_OS_WIN32 or G_WITH_CYGWIN

  is defined.



These macros are defined in glibconfig.h, and are thus available in

all source files that include <glib.h>.



Additionally, there are the compiler-specific macros:

- __GNUC__ is defined when using gcc

- _MSC_VER is defined when using the Microsoft compiler

- __DMC__ is defined when using the Digital Mars C/C++ compiler



G_OS_WIN32 implies using the Microsoft C runtime, normally

msvcrt.dll. GLib is not known to work with the older crtdll.dll

runtime, or the static Microsoft C runtime libraries libc.lib and

libcmt.lib. It apparently does work with the debugging version of

msvcrt.dll, msvcrtd.dll. If compiled with Microsoft compilers newer

than MSVC6, it also works with their compiler-specific runtimes, like

msvcr70.dll or msvcr80.dll. Please note that it's non totally clear if

you would be allowed by the license to distrubute a GLib linked to

msvcr70.dll or msvcr80.dll, as those are not part of the operating

system, but of the MSVC product. msvcrt.dll is part of Windows.



For people using Visual Studio 2005 or later:



If you are building GLib-based libraries or applications, or GLib itself

and you see a C4819 error (or warning, before C4819 is treated as an error

in msvc_recommended_pragmas.h), please be advised that this error/warning should

not be disregarded, as this likely means portions of the build is not being

done correctly, as this is an issue of Visual Studio running on CJK (East Asian)

locales.  This is an issue that also affects builds of other projects, such as

QT, Firefox, LibreOffice/OpenOffice, Pango and GTK+, along with many other projects.



To overcome this problem, please set your system's locale setting for non-Unicode to

English (United States), reboot, and restart the build, and the code should build

normally.  See also this GNOME Wiki page [1] that gives a bit further info on this.



Building software that use GLib or GTK+

=======================================



Building software that just *uses* GLib or GTK+ also require to have

the right compiler set up the right way. If you intend to use gcc,

follow the relevant instructions below in that case, too.



Tor uses gcc with the -mms-bitfields flag which means that in order to

use the prebuilt DLLs (especially of GTK+), if you compile your code

with gcc, you *must* also use that flag. This flag means that the

struct layout rules are identical to those used by MSVC. This is

essential if the same DLLs are to be usable both from gcc- and

MSVC-compiled code. Such compatibility is desirable.



When using the prebuilt GLib DLLs that use msvcrt.dll from code that

uses other C runtimes like for example msvcr70.dll, one should note

that one cannot use such GLib API that take or returns file

descriptors. On Windows, a file descriptor (the small integer as

returned by open() and handled by related functions, and included in

the FILE struct) is an index into a table local to the C runtime

DLL. A file descriptor in one C runtime DLL does not have the same

meaning in another C runtime DLL.



Building GLib

=============



Again, first decide whether you really want to do this.



Before building GLib you must also have a GNU gettext-runtime

developer package. Get prebuilt binaries of gettext-runtime from

http://www.gtk.org/download-windows.html .



Autoconfiscated build (with gcc)

================================



Tor uses gcc 3.4.5 and the rest of the mingw utilities, including MSYS

from www.mingw.org. Somewhat earlier or later versions of gcc

presumably also work fine.



Using Cygwin's gcc with the -mno-cygwin switch is not recommended. In

theory it should work, but Tor hasn't tested that lately. It can

easily lead to confusing situations where one mixes headers for Cygwin

from /usr/include with the headers for native software one really

should use. Ditto for libraries.



If you want to use mingw's gcc, install gcc, win32api, binutils and

MSYS from www.mingw.org.



Tor invokes configure using:



CC='gcc -mtune=pentium3 -mthreads' CPPFLAGS='-I/opt/gnu/include' \

	LDFLAGS='-L/opt/gnu/lib -Wl,--enable-auto-image-base' CFLAGS=-O2 \

	./configure --disable-gtk-doc --prefix=$TARGET



The /opt/gnu mentioned contains the header files for GNU and (import)

libraries for GNU libintl. The build scripts used to produce the

prebuilt binaries are included in the "dev" packages.



Please note that the ./configure mechanism should not blindly be used

to build a GLib to be distributed to other developers because it

produces a compiler-dependent glibconfig.h. For instance, the typedef

for gint64 is long long with gcc, but __int64 with MSVC.



Except for this and a few other minor issues, there shouldn't be any

reason to distribute separate GLib headers and DLLs for gcc and MSVC6

users, as the compilers generate code that uses the same C runtime

library.



The DLL generated by either compiler is binary compatible with the

other one. Thus one either has to manually edit glibconfig.h

afterwards, or use the supplied glibconfig.h.win32 which has been

produced by running configure twice, once using gcc and once using

MSVC, and merging the resulting files with diff -D.



For MSVC7 and later (Visual C++ .NET 2003, Visual C++ 2005, Visual C++

2008 etc) it is preferred to use specific builds of GLib DLLs that use

the same C runtime as the code that uses GLib. Such DLLs should be

named differently than the ones that use msvcrt.dll.



For GLib, the DLL that uses msvcrt.dll is called libglib-2.0-0.dll,

and the import libraries libglib-2.0.dll.a and glib-2.0.lib. Note that

the "2.0" is part of the "basename" of the library, it is not

something that libtool has added. The -0 suffix is added by libtool

and is the value of "LT_CURRENT - LT_AGE". The 0 should *not* be

thought to be part of the version number of GLib. The LT_CURRENT -

LT_AGE value will on purpose be kept as zero as long as binary

compatibility is maintained. For the gory details, see configure.ac

and libtool documentation.



Building with Visual Studio

===========================



A more detailed outline of building GLib with its dependencies can

now be found on the GNOME wiki:



https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GTK%2B/Win32/MSVCCompilationOfGTKStack



Please do not build GLib in paths that contain spaces in them, as

this may cause problems during compilation and during usage of the

library.



In an unpacked tarball, you will find in build\win32\vs9 (VS 2008) and

build\win32\vs10 (VS 2010) a solution file that can be used to build

the GLib DLLs and some auxiliary programs under VS 2008 and VS 2010

(Express Edition will suffice with the needed dependencies) respectively.

Read the README.txt file in those folders for more

information. Note that you will need a libintl implementation, zlib, and 

libFFI.



If you are building from a GIT checkout, you will first need to use some

Unix-like environment or run build/win32/setup.py, 

which will expand the VS 2008/2010 project files, the DLL resouce files and

other miscellanious files required for the build.  Run build/win32/setup.py

as follows:



$python build/win32/setup.py --perl path_to_your_perl.exe



for more usage on this script, run

$python build/win32/setup.py -h/--help



Building with MSVC and NMAKE

============================



If you are building from a GIT snapshot, you will not have all

makefile.msc files. You should copy the corresponding makefile.msc.in

file to that name, and replace any @...@ strings with the correct

value (or use the python script de-in.py from http://hans.breuer.org/gtk/de-in.py).



This is done automatically when an official GLib source distribution

package is built, so if you get GLib from a source distribution

package, there should be makefile.msc files ready to use (possibly after some

editing).



The hand-written makefile.msc files, and the stuff in the "build"

subdirectory, produce DLLs and import libraries that match what the

so-called autoconfiscated build produces.



All the MSVC makefiles are for the command line build with nmake.  If

you want to use the VC-UI you can simply create wrapper .dsp makefiles

(read the VC docs how to do so).



Some modules may require Perl to auto-generate files. The goal (at

least Hans's) is to not require any more tools. Of course you need

the Microsoft Platform SDK in a recent enough - but not too recent - version.

The last PSDK for Visual Studio 6 is:

  http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/platformsdk/sdkupdate/psdk-full.htm

At least install the Core SDK, maybe also the "Tablet PC SDK".





Build with:



nmake -f makefile.msc

  or

nmake -f makefile.msc DEBUG=1



[

 The former will create 'release' versions of the DLLs. If you

 plan to distribute you DLLs please use this command. The latter 

 will create DLLs with debug information _and_ link them with

 msvcrtd.dll instead of msvcrt.dll. 

 Beware: There are known problems with mixing DLLs in one 

 application, which are build against different runtimes. 

 Especially the index-to-file mapping used by 'unix-style' file

 operation - _open() _pipe() etc. - breaks sometimes in strange 

 ways (for example the Gimp plug-in communication).

]



Required libraries (not build from svn)

------------------

  libintl (gnu-intl),



are available pre-built from the website mentioned above.



Versioning

----------

Instead of the Unix and auto* way of tracking versions and resolving

dependencies (configure; make; make install) involving autoconf,

automake, libtool and friends the MSVC build uses a different

approach.



The core of it's versioning is the file build/win32/module.defs.

It contains entries of the form MODULE_VER, e.g.:



	GLIB_VER = 2.0

	LIBICONV_VER = 1.3



and the placement of these modules defined as MODULE, e.g.:



	GLIB = $(TOP)/glib

	LIBICONV = $(TOP)/libiconv-$(LIBICONV_VER)



whereas TOP is defined as the relative path from the respective

module directory to your top build directory. Every makefile.msc

needs to define TOP before including the common make file part

make.msc, which than includes module.defs, like:



TOP = ../..

!INCLUDE $(TOP)/glib/build/win32/make.msc



(Taken from gtk+/gdk/makefile.msc)



With this provision it is possible to create almost placement

independent makefiles without requiring to 'install' the libraries and

headers into a common place (as it is done on Unix, and as Tor does

when producing his zipfiles with prebuilt GLib, GTK+ etc).



Special Files

-------------

	config.h.win32.in : @XXX_MAJOR_VERSION@ needs to be replaced by

the current version/build number. The resulting file is to be saved

as 'config.h.win32'. This should be automatically done if a package

gets build on the Unix platform.



	makefile.msc.in : @XXX_MAJOR_VERSION@ to be replaced. Save as

makefile.msc.



	<module>.def : every function which should be used from the outside of

a dll needs to be marked for 'export'. It is common that one needs to change 

these files after some api changes occured. If there are variables to be

exported another mechanism is needed, like :



	#ifdef G_OS_WIN32

	#  ifdef GDK_COMPILATION

	#    define GDKVAR __declspec(dllexport)

	#  else

	#    define GDKVAR extern __declspec(dllimport)

	#  endif

	#else

	#  define GDKVAR extern

	#endif







Directory Structure

-------------------

all modules should be build in a common directory tree otherwise you 

need to adapt the file 'module.defs'. They are listed here in increasing

dependencies order.



<common rootdir without spaces>

  |

  +- glib

  |   |

  |   +- build          : [this module lives in the SVN root dir]

  |   |   +- win32

  |   |       .\module.defs : defines (relative) locations of the headers

  |   |                       and libs and version numbers to be include 

  |   |                       in dll names

  |   |       .\make.msc    : include by almost every 'makefile.msc'

  |   |

  |   | .\README.WIN32  : more information how to build

  |   | .\glibconfig.h.win32.in : similar to config.h.win32.in

  |   | .\makefile.msc  : master makefile, sub dir makefiles should work 

  |   |

  |   +- glib

  |   +- gmodule

  |   +- gthread        : does _not_ depend on pthread anymore

  |   +- gobject

  |

  +- pango

  |   +- pango          : 'native' build does not require extra libs and

  |   |                 includes the minimal required text renderer

  |   |                 (there is also a currently slightly broken FreeType2 

  |   |                 based implementation for win32)

  |   +- modules (not yet build)

  |

  +- atk

  |   +- atk

  |       .\makefile.msc : build here

  |

  +- gtk+

  |   | .\config.h.win32 : for all the below

  |   |

  |   +- gdk-pixbuf

  |   |   .\gdk_pixbuf.rc.in : version resource for the DLLs. Needs

  |   |                 to be converted (filled with version info)

  |   |                 as described above.

  |   |

  |   +- gdk

  |   |   | .\makefile.msc : some auto-generation is needed to build in the

  |   |   |             in the subdirectory 

  |   |   +- win32

  |   |

  |   +- gtk



  |

  +- gimp

  |   .\makefile.msc    : master makefile to build The Gimp. The makefiles

  |                     from the sub dirs should work stand alone, but than

  |                     the user needs to know the build order



  |

  +- dia                : additionally depends on libart_lgpl (in SVN)

      |                 and libxml2 ( see http://www.xmlsoft.org/ )

      +- lib

      +- app

      +- objects

      +- plug-ins

          +- python



[1]: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GTK%2B/Win32/MSVCCompilationOfGTKStack under "Preparations"