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Diffstat (limited to 'README.win32')
| -rw-r--r-- | README.win32 | 41 |
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diff --git a/README.win32 b/README.win32 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef0f5c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.win32 @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +pkg-config on Win32 +=================== + +This file describes pkg-config for "pure" Win32. (With Cygwin, +pkg-config 0.8.0 builds fine right out of the box. Cygwin is just +another Unix variant, as far as pkg-config is concerned.) I hesitate +to call this "pure" Win32 target mingw, as the ideal would be for +pkg-config to be usable also by MSVC users. This will require the +addition of an option to print out the flags in the form used by MSVC, +however, which isn't done yet. Anyway, libraries like GLib, Pango, GTK +that are described by pkgconfig files definitely are supposed to be +usable both for MSVC users and gcc ("mingw") users. + +There should be no compile-time paths built into the executable of +pkg-config. Likewise, not in the libraries it describes either. + +We use one optional entry in the Registry: The path to the pkgconfig +installation prefix. (This can be either user-specific (in +HKEY_CURRENT_USER) or for the whole machine (in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE).) +If pkg-config.exe is invoked from the "bin" subdirectory of a +directory with a lib/pkgconfig subdirectory, no Registry entry is even +needed, as pkgconfig (actually, the +g_win32_get_package_installation_directory() function in GLib) figures +out the directory by itself. + +The intention is that a developer package for some library being +desribed by a .pc file is installed using some simple installer, that +edits the user-selected installation directory into the .pc file +before storing the .pc file where pkg-config can find it. + +On Unix, pkg-config is built using its own copy of GLib 1.2.8. On +Windows, we use the normal GLib available for Windows (1.3.9 +currently). Yes, this does introduce a circular dependency, but that +can be worked around. The circular dependency only appears if one uses +the configure mechanism to build GLib. GLib's configure script checks +for pkg-config. pkg-config depends on GLib. Thus, starting from +scratch, with no GLib and no pkg-config, using configure, there would +indeed be a Catch-22 situation. However, GLib can be built just fine +using the manually written makefiles for mingw or MSVC. And if +somebody does want to build GLib on Win32 using configure, she can +first install a prebuilt pkgconfig. |