Building openXCom in 64-bits with MinGW on Windows

[JDarthenay]

Please, people : DLLs work. Users don't care that there are 16 inter-dependant DLLs along with your executable, and any future maintainer will kiss you (posthumously if necessary) as you're saving them the trouble of tracking down and compiling 16 specific versions of those libraries.

Ok, no problem, I linked with SDL.dll, no worries!
By the way I am happy I did not uninstall my previous MinGW-64 executables because using GNU Make 3.82.90 instead of GNU Make 4.0 solved my problems.

[Yankes]

Available sources doesn't mean there is someone doing builds or upgrades to newer libraries.
I have had to upgrade sources and/or rebuild toolchains many times, and please believe me, it's very hard work. There can easily be an incertainty of 4 years over which version of GCC you need to use (that's 28 stable versions), Internet links go stale, nothing is forward compatible when you need it, and libraries have depencies, which have dependencies, which have depencies, which...
Please, people : DLLs work. Users don't care that there are 16 inter-dependant DLLs along with your executable, and any future maintainer will kiss you (posthumously if necessary) as you're saving them the trouble of tracking down and compiling 16 specific versions of those libraries.

What is real difference between recompiling dll and exe? Every problem that can affect exe can affect dll too. New dll can be incompatible with old dll etc.
Sometimes recompiling one dll could be harder that recompiling whole exe because it have most dependencies.
If everything is compiled from sources then all libraries will need exactly the same toolchain and have uniform dependencies (if two have lib that have common dep then it will be in same version other wise it will fail to compile).

Right now my experience with compiling OXC as stand alone exe is that my only problem is that I need linux (to run mxe), rest of dependencies are fix by 2 commands. It work for me, nightles and for Meridian.

[yrizoud]

DLL and exe are similar issue, but at least, once the DLL and library are available, they have a chance to be forward compatible for many years.
For example SDL_image (of SDL1) is a pain to compile, with dependencies :
 - libpng
      - which requires zlib
 - libjpeg
 - tiff
 - (more?)
Once you manage to determine correct versions which are all compatible with each other, the resulting library and DLL are precious : They are compatible with any program which use SDL_image, no matter if it was written (or compiled) in 2006 or 2016, because the API hasn't changed ever. This is one less problem to worry about.

[JDarthenay]

DLL and exe are similar issue, but at least, once the DLL and library are available, they have a chance to be forward compatible for many years.
For example SDL_image (of SDL1) is a pain to compile, with dependencies :
 - libpng
      - which requires zlib
 - libjpeg
 - tiff
 - (more?)

This is a good thing I did not have to compile 64-bit SDL_image unlike SDL...

[Meridian]

Please, people : DLLs work.

In theory, and for people who can compile them, yes.

In practice, I had to switch to single exe, because people just couldn't run the game. Since then, no issues.

[JDarthenay]

@Yankes

Where did you find about the "-static-libstdc++" linker option?
I tried "gcc --help" and "ld --help" but I find nothing about this option...

[Yankes]

@Yankes

Where did you find about the "-static-libstdc++" linker option?
I tried "gcc --help" and "ld --help" but I find nothing about this option...

https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Link-Options.html

[JDarthenay]

https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Link-Options.html

I wonder why I can't see that with 'ld --help'...

They say it has no effect if '-shared' is used and you use them both... So no reason to keep it, right? Except maybe if you sometimes build without '-static' but want to keep '-static-libstdc++'.

[Yankes]

I wonder why I can't see that with 'ld --help'...

They say it has no effect if '-shared' is used and you use them both... So no reason to keep it, right? Except maybe if you sometimes build without '-static' but want to keep '-static-libstdc++'.

probably yes

[JDarthenay]

@Yankes I just discovered the "vpath" directive in makefiles. Why don't you use it to have only one pattern rule?

[Yankes]

@Yankes I just discovered the "vpath" directive in makefiles. Why don't you use it to have only one pattern rule?

My knowledge of make is basic, I did not even write it, I only modify to work for me. Because building system is not my focus, if it work I can leave it as is even if it not perfect. Bigger problem for me is cmake and VS project because each time I add some file I need update them manually. I don't have this problems with makefiles.

[JDarthenay]

Indeed, you need to update your makefile only if someone add a directory in sources. But using vpath it seems it won't even be necessary, only need to update it if someone increases the max depth in src directory.

[JDarthenay]

If you want to use it you need to add this line after your $(SRC) definition:

Code: [Select]

vpath %.cpp $(sort $(dir $(SRCS)))
You can then remove all your compiling commands but the first one:

Code: [Select]

$(OBJDIR)%.o:: %.cpp
$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) -c -o $@ $<You will end with two rules instead of 13 for openXCom core.

And to avoid polluting yaml-cpp building rules you add after openXCom rule:

Code: [Select]

vpath %.cpp

[JDarthenay]

My knowledge of make is basic, I did not even write it, I only modify to work for me. Because building system is not my focus, if it work I can leave it as is even if it not perfect. Bigger problem for me is cmake and VS project because each time I add some file I need update them manually. I don't have this problems with makefiles.

Ahhh! I feel stupid, I completely forgot you told me that! My Push Request failed automatic build check because I added a file and linking failed! What do I have to do to fix it?

[Yankes]

Looking on https://travis-ci.org/SupSuper/OpenXcom/jobs/127037699 I see that build is probably generated from CMakeLists.txt
To fix it you need add your file there too.