Detecting the need for -mwin32 in newer cygwin gcc's

Robert Collins robert.collins@itdomain.com.au
Thu Mar 8 15:21:00 GMT 2001


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Garceau [ mailto:pgarceau@qwest.net ]
> Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 9:38 AM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: Re: Detecting the need for -mwin32 in newer cygwin gcc's
> 
> 
> Ok, so here are my own ideas...
> 
> On 7 Mar 2001, at 23:49, the Illustrious Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> 
> > On Mar  7, 2001, Christopher Faylor <cgf@redhat.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > Basically, I think we need something like a 
> AC_PROG_GCC_USES_MWIN32.
> > 
> > I have mixed feelings about having this macro in autoconf.  On one
> > hand, it would be kind of promoting the use of proprietary 
> software. On
> > the other, I see it would be a convenience for projects 
> that really need
> > it, even though it could probably live with CFLAGS='-mwin32 -g -O2'.
> 
> 	My own feeling are that autoconfig should _not_ be made 
> more complex 
> than it already is (this coming from someone who hasn't been able to 
> get a working autoconf ported, but has instead modified the 
> switches on 
> gcc/g++ to accomplish the same things that autoconf make convenient. 
> [pun not intended]).

What problems have you had geting autoconf working? I've had no
_autoconf_ difficulties with a long list of packages (squid, wget,
readline, glib, ...)
 
> 	It would be easy enough to use the -mwin32 switch, or 
> set the specs so 
> that it is assumed that the build is for a win32 machine unless 
> otherwise noted (-mno_win32).  Or, depending on the priorities trying 
> to be promoted and supported for Cygwin, the default can be 
> -mno-win32, 
> thereby forcing the developer to use -mwin32 if they want to build a 
> win32 app.
> 	In the latter case, if -mno-cygwin is being used then 
> the default is 
> defined as -mwin32.

While it's 'easy enough' for someone who's been on this list and
watching the changes happen, it's not intuitive, or even logical, to an
old unix hand, who just downloaded cygwin via setup, downloaded (say) an
emacs tarball, and then runs ./configure; make; and hits lots of errors
(because they needed -mwin32 and _didn't know that_.

 The goal is to make the porter's (who is not necessarily the developer)
job easier.

The porters goal is to allow the user to run
./configure
make 
make install

and have the program compile and install efficiently.

So the gcc specs are interesting, but moot: some packages need one
default, some the other. So the porter wants the configure script to
find the correct gcc switchs, _for this install_ of cygwin. I.e. with
gcc 2.95.6-5 or -8, where the default is opposite!. And we want the
porter to have an easy time of this :]

Rob
 
> 	Peace,
> 
> 		Paul G.
> 
> 
> Nothing real can be threatened.
>     Nothing unreal exists.
> 
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