Re: [boost] wgcc 2.0 RC1 released

From: Duft Markus (Markus.Duft_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-09-19 10:34:27

When building with wgcc there are a few benefits:

Wgcc uses the native windows compiler to build (so the code may or may not be faster ;o)) and whats a lot more important: the debug information produced is readable by visual studio, so you can debug the output. Gdb on windows (at least on interix) is so terribly broken, i could not debug 10 lines of code without gdb failing at some point. The visual studio debugger (the 2005 version especially) is very very much better. (gdb on cygwin doesn't behave too good either. This was the initial reason for wgcc to be written (we are a 300 programmer company ;o), we need to debug...))

With cygwin the thing is, that cygwin isn't really quite stable on win xp and above when using more than one CPU. I don't know how MinGW behaves there.

The second thing is, that resulting executables depend on msvcrt.lib and are therefore binary compatible with nearly everything ;o) on windows. When using gcc it has it's own libc (on interix gcc is a interix build, and has really not much to do with windows.... ;o//) and one can't link those things together, so in gcc built binaries one can _not_ use the win32 API which, on windows, is not really desireable.

The last thing is, that tools such as Rational Purify may be used to examine the resulting binaries. It's all just really native ;o)

At the moment as i wrote in my release note only Interix is supported, since this is also stable on win xp and above with multiple processors. But using cygwin as a build environment only, using wgcc as compiler is possible too, i'd just need to implement one method, about 5 lines of code, to convert paths from unix <-> windows style.

I hope this is an answer to your questions!

I'm really overwhelmed that someone outside my company finally shows at least _some_ interest. It's really cool, give it a try!

Cheers, Markus

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: boost-bounces_at_[hidden] [mailto:boost-bounces_at_[hidden]] Im Auftrag von David Abrahams
Gesendet: Dienstag, 19. September 2006 16:07
An: boost_at_[hidden]
Cc: libtool_at_[hidden]
Betreff: Re: [boost] wgcc 2.0 RC1 released

"Duft Markus" <Markus.Duft_at_[hidden]> writes:

> Hi again!
>  
> For all interested in native Windows binaries built with Autotools and 
> mnay other interesting things:

I'm not sure whether this is on-topic for Boost; it seems of somewhat borderline relevance.  However, now that you've started the thread, one obvious question leaps to mind: why would anyone want to use wgcc in lieu of Cygwin or MinGW gcc?

--
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com
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