Re: [Mingw-users] libdir for MinGW

[Earnie B. <ear...@ya...>]

Manu (mingw-users) wrote:
> Luke Dunstan wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>>The problem is that you are using the old compiler, because when using Mingw
>>GCC 3.x libmingwex is linked automatically.
> 
> 
> I understand. The binaries will be linked, but will ./configure find libmingwex?
> In that case, with GCC 3.x, I should get:
> 
> $ ./configure
> ...

Doesn't it look for the function first?  If it can't find the function 
in a normal build it then will search for the function in some famous 
library.

These functions used to exist in different parts of the runtime and 
caused no problems before.

> checking for library containing opendir... -lmingwex
> ...
> 
> I mean that even if the compiler can link libmingwex, if ./configure can't find
> the library, could it assume that we don't have working dirent functions?
> 
> I had a look to 'libc' from GnuWin32, libiberty and DJGPP sources. While
> a few POSIX functions like fork() are implemented as dummy functions,
> there's already some useful POSIX functions for Win32.
> 
> What about a POSIXish toolkit for MinGW?
> Containing a 'libdir', for example. :)
> 

That's a different question.  One I'll neither say yes or no to. 
Perhaps a include/posix directory where we move the likes of unistd.h 
to?  Perhaps fot the source it exist in mingwex/posix?  I'm both for and 
against the idea.  As a maintainer I see the pros and cons of both and 
they tip the scales equally.  In the end though, it's the end user not 
the developer who will have to live with the choices we make.  Should 
the Win32 user be forced to learn POSIX styles just to use a niffty 
program that was first written for POSIX.  I think not, so my leaning 
toward more POSIX functionality is swung toward no in favor of the end user.

Earnie.