Compiling GNUstep on Windows

[Roland Schwingel]

Hi...

A few days ago I sucessfully compiled GNUstep 1.5.0 as DLL for windows 
(mingw32).
I studied the README files in the gnustep-make package for mingw and 
cygwin building but none
of them did work for me (but where _very_ valueable).

So I sat down and did take a deep look inside the process. Here is my 
small, but complete walkthru
for the job.  Maybe this is also helpful to other people... The walkthru 
is for gnustep-base 1.5.0, but
I am sure it will work with older versions as well.

Whats my environment:
Actual cygwin (1.3.12) with mingw runtime (2.1) so I have to compile 
with gcc -mno-cygwin to
get a mingw dll. (I am *NOT* using the mingw/msys distribution! - I 
tried it as described in
the readme,  but with *NO* success)
You need just cygwin and the appropriate cygwin packages 
(gcc,binutils,w32api, make,...).
I used gcc2 (with hooked in objc support of course) not gcc3! I run 
everything under Win2000.

So here are the steps (after opening a bash)
======================================================================
gnustep-make-1.5.0:
./configure --target=i386-mingw32 --enable-flattened 
--without-system-root --with-local-root=/usr/GNUstep 
--with-network-root=/usr/GNUstep
make target=i386-mingw32
make target=i386-mingw32 install
. /usr/GNUstep/Makefiles/GNUStep.sh

ffcall-1.8d:
./configure --target=i386-mingw32 
--prefix=`$GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES/fixpath.sh -u $GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT`
make LN_S=cp
make install

iconv-1.8:
(the part with the most problems - maybe you download it precompiled but 
if you want to compile it - here is the guide)
Make sure you are compiling from a mapped drive (eg. d:) not from an UNC 
Path!!!!
./configure --target=i386-mingw32 --host=i386-mingw32
(ignore warnings here)
edit libtool and libcharset/libtool so that the CC variable reads "gcc 
-mno-cygwin -mdll"
make
(After a while make breaks with an error in linking)
find . -name "*.lnk" -print -exec rm {} \;
make
(make breaks now in the src folder, but the DLL is already buildt, that 
is what we need)
cp include/iconv.h $GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Headers
cp lib/.libs/libiconv-2.dll $GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Tools/libiconv-2.dll
cp lib/.libs/libiconv.dll.a $GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Libraries/libiconv.a

gnustep-objc-1.2.2:
As of the fact I need a special function there exported I had to add 
objc_set_error_handler in libobjc.def
make clean
find . -name "*.lnk" -print -exec rm {} \;
make target=i386-mingw32 shared=yes LN_S="ln -s" 
SHARED_LD_PREFLAGS="--driver-flags=\"-mno-cygwin -mdll 
-Wl,--enable-stdcall-fixup\" --target=i386-mingw32 --export-all-symbols"
make target=i386-mingw32 shared=yes LN_S="ln -s" 
SHARED_LD_PREFLAGS="--driver-flags=\"-mno-cygwin -mdll 
-Wl,--enable-stdcall-fixup\" --target=i386-mingw32 --export-all-symbols" 
install

gnustep-base-1.5.0:
./configure --target=i386-mingw32
(Ignore error in libxml test when you don't have libxml installed, also 
SSL warnings!)
make clean
make clean debug=yes
find . -name "*.lnk" -print -exec rm {} \;
make target=i386-mingw32 shared=yes LN_S="ln -s" 
SHARED_LD_PREFLAGS="--driver-flags=\"-mno-cygwin -mdll 
-Wl,--enable-stdcall-fixup\" --target=i386-mingw32 --export-all-symbols" 
SYSTEM_LDFLAGS="-mno-cygwin"
make target=i386-mingw32 shared=yes LN_S="ln -s" 
SHARED_LD_PREFLAGS="--driver-flags=\"-mno-cygwin -mdll 
-Wl,--enable-stdcall-fixup\" --target=i386-mingw32 --export-all-symbols" 
SYSTEM_LDFLAGS="-mno-cygwin" install
cd Source
find . -name "*.lnk" -print -exec rm {} \;
make target=i386-mingw32 shared=yes debug=yes LN_S="ln -s" 
SHARED_LD_PREFLAGS="--driver-flags=\"-mno-cygwin -mdll 
-Wl,--enable-stdcall-fixup\" --target=i386-mingw32 --export-all-symbols" 
SYSTEM_LDFLAGS="-mno-cygwin"
make target=i386-mingw32 shared=yes debug=yes LN_S="ln -s" 
SHARED_LD_PREFLAGS="--driver-flags=\"-mno-cygwin -mdll 
-Wl,--enable-stdcall-fixup\" --target=i386-mingw32 --export-all-symbols" 
SYSTEM_LDFLAGS="-mno-cygwin" install
cd ..
======================================================================
Thats all... :-)

Now you have everything under /usr/GNUstep

Roland