ncurses 5.9 - patch 20120622

[ncurses.git] / README.MinGW

diff --git a/README.MinGW b/README.MinGW
index 6c0b9d620dfc6f9ba07db13d6f2cb831ede915f4..f879f3b3c817fa80a4c1f5b6ff1a39c1de2d2e46 100644 (file)
--- a/README.MinGW
+++ b/README.MinGW
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--- Copyright (c) 2008           Free Software Foundation, Inc.               --
+-- Copyright (c) 2008-2011,2012 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             --
 --                                                                           --
 -- Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a   --
 -- copy of this software and associated documentation files (the             --


@@ -25,18 +25,29 @@
 -- sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written        --
 -- authorization.                                                            --
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 -- 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 1.8 2012/01/21 23:55:33 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.
 
 -- 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-4.6.1 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
 
 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


@@ -44,36 +55,81 @@ to provide the includes, libraries and DLLs to be used with the more
 common traditional development environments on Windows, mainly with
 Microsoft Visual Studio.
 
 common traditional development environments on Windows, mainly with
 Microsoft Visual Studio.
 

-If you start a bash from the MSYS environment, please make sure that the
-Microsoft Development tools are in your PATH right after the MinGW
-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". 
-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.
+It is necessary to unset the TERM environment variable, to activate the
+Windows console-driver.

 
 

-Please unset the TERM environment variable, so that the Console driver
-gets activated.
+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.
 
 
 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
+I recommend using libtool to build ncurses on MinGW, because libtool
+knows exactly how to build dll's on Windows for use with MinGW.
+
+To build a modern but still small footprint ncurses that provides
+hooks for interop, I recommend using these options:
+
+         --with-libtool
+         --disable-home-terminfo
+         --enable-database
+         --disable-termcap
+         --enable-sp-funcs
+         --enable-term-driver
+         --enable-interop
+
+This is the configuration commandline as I'm using it at the moment (assuming environment variable MINGW_ROOT to hold the root directory name of your MinGW build):
+
+./configure \
+       --prefix=$MINGW_ROOT \
+       --with-cxx \
+       --without-ada \
+       --enable-warnings \
+       --enable-assertions \
+       --disable-home-terminfo \
+       --enable-database \
+       --enable-sp-funcs \
+       --enable-term-driver \
+       --enable-interop \
+       --disable-termcap \
+       --with-progs \
+       --with-libtool \
+       --enable-pc-files \
+       --mandir=$MINGW_ROOT/share/man
+
+Please note that it is also necessary to set this environment variable:
+
+export PATH_SEPARATOR=";"
+
+in order to parse the terminfo paths correctly. Terminfo paths should
+always be separated by a seeeemicolon,even when running under MSYS.
+
+To support regular expressions properly, ncurses under MinGW should be
+linked against the gnurx regex library, which must be built separately
+under MinGW.  See
+
+    ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binaries/win32/dependencies/libgnurx-src-2.5.zip

 
 

-   make dlls
+All the options above are - like the whole Windows support -
+experimental.

 
 A lot is still TODO, e.g.:
 
 
 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.
   - 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)
   - 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.
 
 To support terminfo, we need to have an ioctl() simulation for the
 serial and networked Terminals.