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READMEwin-msys2.md

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USING MSYS2 (WINDOWS) CMAKE, MESON, CONFIGURE

Created 7 October 2023
Updated 19 December 2023

msys2 provides an environment much like posix/unix/linux with programs precompiled for use on windows installed in its own set of locations.

Do not use the -DWALL option to cmake or --enable-wall to configure or the meson equivalent as it causes a minor warning about I64u , from gcc (treated as an error).

When using configure note that building a static library libdwarf.a is not supported. A static libdwarf.a can be built with meson or cmake.

Shared library builds

Libdwarf builds from configure and cmake are static (archive) library builds by default. Meson builds to a shared library by default.

On msys2 with cmake one can generate a shared library build with:

-DBUILD_SHARED=YES -DBUILD_NON_SHARED=NO

With the following on the meson command line one can build libdwarf as an archive and dwarfdump and the programs built will use the static library.

--default-library static

The meson default is shared and can be explicitly chosen by:

--default-library shared

configure will only allow generation of shared library builds, while for cmake and meson one can choose whether to build a shared library or a static (archive) library (libdwarf.a).

On msys2 with configure one gets a shared library build with:

--enable-shared --disable-static

NOTE on linking against libdwarf.a

If you are are linking code against a static library libdwarf.a you must arrange to define the macro LIBDWARF_STATIC in compiling your code that does a #include "libdwarf.h".

To pass LIBDWARF_STATIC to the preprocessor with Visual Studio:

right click on a project name
In the contextual menu, click on Properties at the very bottom
In the new window, double click on C/C++
On the right, click on Preprocessor definitions
The is a small down arrow on the right, click on it,
then click on Modify
Add LIBDWARF_STATIC to the values
Click on OK to close the windows

Building with Visual Studio on Windows

While Windows Visual Studio is not a supported environment the following may be of interest to some.

Building in Windows Visual Studio is fairly straightforward. We'll use the simplest possible setup (we hope). Using VS buttons and settings do:

  1. Main Panel: Click Git. Subpanel: click Clone Repository In the subpanel fill in the clone source: https://github.com/davea42/libdwarf-code and the directory to place the clone.

  2. Main Panel: Click Git. Options list: click Cmake Setup. A Folder View panel (should show up) Click on the top-level CMakeLists.txt file.

  3. Main Panel: Click Build. Options list: click Build All

Expect a few warnings because the source uses Posix rather than Windows-only calls where applicable. A way to eliminate such warnings using VS is to edit CMakeSettings_schema.json

  1. Click on Project (top level menu)

  2. Click on "CMake Settings for libdwarf"

  3. In the settings panel click on "Edit JSON"

  4. In the "buildCommandArgs" line

    Change 
  "buildCommandArgs": ""
to
  "buildCommandArgs": "-D_CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS"

Setting up msys2 on Windows

We suggest you use meson for msys2 builds.

Direct your browser to msys2.org

Download a recent .exe from the downloads page. For example msys2-x86_64-20230718.exe Execute it and follow the instructions on msys2.org

A straightforward way to use the tests etc in the source is to find the appropriate MSYS2 shell program and put a link to it on the desktop. The Windows list of applications will show MSYS2 and under that category there will be a list of candidates to use.

The useful candidates on x86_64 are are

MSYS2 MINGW64  The compiler is gcc
MSYS2 CLANG64  The compiler is clang

the following should get you sufficient files for building and testing all the build mechanisms:

basics
pacman -Suy
pacman -S base-devel git autoconf automake libtool
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-python3
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-zstd
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-doxygen

extras for meson/cmake
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-meson
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-python3-pip

To create a distribution one needs xz:
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-xz

to list packages
pacman -Q
to remove packages
pacman -R  <packagename>

Ninja speed

cmake will generate ninja makefiles on mingw by default, add '-G "Unix Makefiles"' to the cmake command line to generate makefiles for gnu make, but we suggest you use "-G Ninja" for speed and clarity..

Basic Testing of libdwarf

This checks for the existence critical executables such as cmake,meson,and ninja and only runs builds that could work.

sh scripts/allsimplebuilds.sh

Set a Prefix for test installs

To get a usable set of executables set a prefix (for cmake, -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/bin presuming the bin directory is something in your $PATH in msys2. Set an appropriate prefix whichever build tool you use.

ninja install
cp src/bin/dwarfdump/dwarfdump.conf to $HOME
# then
dwarfdump.exe
# which will give a short message  about
# No object file provided. In which case
# dwarfdump is usable.