-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--- Copyright (c) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc. --
+-- Copyright (c) 2008-2010,2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc. --
-- --
-- Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a --
-- copy of this software and associated documentation files (the --
-- sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written --
-- authorization. --
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--- $Id: README.MinGW,v 1.1 2008/12/14 19:22:16 juergen Exp $
+-- $Id: README.MinGW,v 1.5 2011/02/26 16:57:17 tom Exp $
-- Author: Juergen Pfeifer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is work in progress, but it's in an state where one can see it
works at least on the Windows Console.
-To build ncurses for native Windows, you need the MinGW toolchain from
-http://www.mingw.org
+You should install the MSYS package, so that you've a shell environment that
+allows you to run the scripts, especially configure etc. You can get that
+from http://www.mingw.org
-You should install also the MSYS package, so that you've a shell environment
-that allows you to run the scripts, especially configure etc.
+To build ncurses for native Windows, you need the MinGW toolchain. The
+original MinGW toolchain from the above site is only for 32-Bit Windows. As
+Windows Server - and also regular workstations - are moving to 64-Bit, it
+seems to be reasonable to have a toolchain that supports both architectures.
+I recommend to use the TDM gcc toolchain which you can find at
+http://tdm-gcc.tdragon.net/download. Go to the download section and select
+the bundle installer for tdm64 (MinGW-w64). This installs a multilib version
+of the gcc toolchain that can compile for native 32- and 64-Bit Windows
+versions. It also comes with a working pthread implementation.
+
+The latest config and build scripts we use for MinGW have only been tested
+for the gcc-4.4 compiler toolchain (or better).
Using MinGW is a pragmatic decision, it's the easiest way to port this
heavily UNIX based sourcebase to native Windows. The goal is of course
tools. The LIB.EXE tool is the only one needed. You need this only if
you want to build DLLs that work with native Windows programs. If you
don't have any Microsoft Development tools on your machine, consider
-at least to get the free "Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition".
+at least to get the free "Visual C++ 2010 Express Edition".
It contains the LIB.EXE tool. You may also use this compiler to test
writing native Windows programs using the ncurses DLLs without using
MinGW then for writing apps.
-Please unset the TERM environment variable, so that the Console driver
-gets activated.
+It is necessary to unset the TERM environment variable, to activate the
+Windows console-driver.
+
+Please also make sure that MSYS links to the correct directory containing
+your MinGW toolchain. For TDM this is usually C:\MinGW64. In your Windows
+CMD.EXE command shell go to the MSYS root directory (most probably
+C:\MSYS or C:\MSYS\1.0) and verify, that there is a junction point mingw
+that points to the MinGW toolchain directory. If not, delete the mingw
+directory and use the mklink command (or the linkd.exe utility on older
+Windows) to create the junction point.
This code requires WindowsNT 5.1 or better, which means on the client
Windows XP or better, on the server Windows Server 2003 or better.
-In order to build the DLLs, you must call
+In order to build ncurses for the planned interop layer with .NET, we
+recommend to use these options with configure
+
+ --disable-home-terminfo
+ --enable-reentrant
+ --enable-sp-funcs
+ --enable-term-driver
+ --enable-interop
+ --with-pthread (if using TDM toolchain as recommended)
+
+This is the configuration commandline as I'm using it at the moment:
+
+./configure \
+ --prefix=/mingw \
+ --without-cxx-binding \
+ --without-ada \
+ --enable-warnings \
+ --enable-assertions \
+ --enable-reentrant \
+ --with-debug \
+ --with-normal \
+ --disable-home-terminfo \
+ --enable-sp-funcs \
+ --enable-term-driver \
+ --enable-interop \
+ --with-pthread
+
+If you are on a 64-Bit Windows system and want to build a 32-Bit version
+of ncurses, you may use this commandline for configuration (when using
+the TDM toolchain):
+
+CC="gcc -m32" LD="ld -m32" ./configure \
+ --prefix=/mingw \
+ --without-cxx-binding \
+ --without-ada \
+ --enable-warnings \
+ --enable-assertions \
+ --enable-reentrant \
+ --with-debug \
+ --with-normal \
+ --disable-home-terminfo \
+ --enable-sp-funcs \
+ --enable-term-driver \
+ --enable-interop \
+ --with-pthread
+
+All the options above are - like the whole Windows support -
+experimental.
+
+In order to build the DLLs, after your regular make you must call
make dlls
A lot is still TODO, e.g.:
- - Mouse support for the Console
- Wide Character support
The Win32Con driver should actually only use Unicode in the
future.
- - Thread support (locking)
+ - Thread support (locking). If using TDM toolchain this is done by
+ configuring pthreads.
- A GUI console driver
- Support for Terminals attached via a serial port (via terminfo)
- Support for networked Terminal connections (via terminfo)
+ - Workarounds for MinGW's filesystem access are necessary to make infocmp
+ work (though tic works).
To support terminfo, we need to have an ioctl() simulation for the
serial and networked Terminals.
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff