[Mingw-users] Re: glib on MinGW

[Tor L. <tm...@ik...>]

Soren A writes:
 > So that tells me that the trouble is in Glib on Win32, either in
 > how it is written or in how it was built (using MSVC++).

No, the glib and other DLLs I distribute are built with mingw.

 > BTW, Tor, *why* are Windows DLLs being used from subdirectories
 > named "lib/" instead of "bin/" on your site?

Umm, because that's where 'libtool --mode=install' puts them when
invoked from the Makefiles produced from the cross-platform
Makefile.am files... BTW, see Max Bowsher's message earlier today on
this list (Libtool patch sticking point).

 > I am just asking if you are aware that this isn't appropriate on a
 > basic level; a Win32 DLL is NOT wholly analogous to a *nix .so
 > share library -- it is in an internal sense a stand-alone
 > executable -- and belongs with the other .exe files in dir named
 > bin/. The *import libs* as they are called, foo.dll.[a|lib], are
 > what belong in a subdir named /lib.

Yes, I understand. But I don't find this so important that I would
want to hack libtool or add complex workarounds to the Makefile.am
files just to get the DLLs installed in $bindir. (Making the GLib etc
Makefile.am files install the import libraries, too, was complex
enough, this is IMHO really something that libtool should take care of
automatically when it installs the DLL.)

Invoking configure with --libdir=<prefix>/bin would be a possibility,
but then the subdirectories of libdir (for instance GTK 2.0's
lib/gtk-2.0/2.0.0/loaders) would get installed in bindir instead,
which might be confusing, too.

Besides, if somebody would look at it from a pure Windows perspective
without any Unix background at all, using folder names like "bin" is a
bit odd, too...

And, the zipfiles I distribute aren't really meant for
end-users. Software for end-users typically is installed with an
installer, and the person building an installer can of course arrange
for the DLLs to go in bin (or wherever) as she chooses. Only thing to
look out for is that some DLLs (glib, gtk, pango) deduce their
installation location at run-time in DllMain(). Message catalogs are
looked up in <top>/lib/locale, for instance. If the DLL is in a "bin"
or "lib" subfolder, the parent folder of that is assumed to be the
<top>, otherwise, the DLL is assumed to be directly in <top>.

--tml