[wgcc-dev] wgcc 2.0.1 released

[Duft M. <Mar...@sa...>]

wgcc is a cross-compiler tool primarily written for Microsoft's Interix.
Its primary purpose is to produce native Windows binaries  (internally
using the Microsoft Tool chain), and to mimic the behaviour of the GNU
compiler collection. This means that wgcc understands many  of GCC's
command line arguments, and in most cases delivers the same results as
expected, sometimes manipulating the underlying tool's input  and
output.

Even though wgcc was written for Interix only, it can be used on native
Windows (without Interix), and other Systems, like Cygwin. The only
restriction is that on Platforms other than Interix, only Windows style
paths are understood. With the release of version 2.0.1 this changed.
Now Cygwin too is able to convert paths correctly. On Interix (and now
Cygwin) wgcc automatically converts UNIX style paths to Windows style
ones (i.e. /wgcc to C:\SFU\wgcc).

wgcc abstracts away lots of inconveniences that are introduced by
building static libraries, shared libraries (DLL's) and executables with
any possible combination of those three. When using wgcc both static and
shared libraries behave exactly the same on Windows, and this makes
tons of defines unnecessary. The only thing that still has to be done is
to give all Data symbols (i.e. Variables) an import attribute
(__declspec(dllimport)) when using them (i.e. in the library header
files) in an executable. For a simple example take a look at the file
tests/shared.test inside the wgcc distribution.

wgcc version 2.0.1 changes some things that are not visible on the first
view. It acts a lot cleverer when searching for Libraries, and  linking
them together. Wgcc now detects conflicts between Runtime versions
automatically. This Feature is only available for libraries built  using
wgcc. When explicitly enabled, wgcc and pxwc together add capabilities
for profiling memory usage and memory leaks with no code changes  to
your programs. Of course you can add profiling function calls to your
code to get finer grained results. For more Information see the  current
Documentation.

To the pxwc library there have been some changes needed for memory
profiling support, and runtime conflict checking done by wgcc. Still
pxwc  includes only a small set of functions, so your help is needed to
find out which others to include. Just open a Feature Request at
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=3D158081&atid=3D806407 and we =
will
try to add functionality as soon as possible.

The libtool 1.5.22 patch has been reviewed and improved. Currently still
four tests fail, but we're working hard to get those failures away.

To continue improving wgcc and pxwc packages, we now need your help in
testing them. Please download wgcc and try to compile your software
using it. If something goes wrong please contact mduft or open an issue
using the Sourceforge Tracker at
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=3D158081&atid=3D806404, or ask =
your
questions at the forums at
http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=3D158081.

You can browse the Subversion Repository here:
http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/interix-wgcc/trunks/

Documentation can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3D158081&package_id=
=3D
203917&release_id=3D446943
Source Packages can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3D158081&package_id=
=3D
177049&release_id=3D445894
The Patch for Libtool can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3D158081&package_id=
=3D
196163&release_id=3D446510