[Mingw-users] Definition of min conflicts in system headers (GCC 3 only)

[Wu Y. <ad...@ne...>]

The following simple code segments will cause error messages:

#include <vector>
#include <windows.h>
#include <string>

int main()
{
	return 0;
}

g++ test.cpp

In file included from D:/mingw-gcc3/include/c++/3.2.2/string:57,
                  from test.cpp:3:
D:/mingw-gcc3/include/c++/3.2.2/bits/basic_string.tcc: In member function
    `_Alloc::size_type std::basic_string<_CharT, _Traits, 
_Alloc>::rfind(const
    _CharT*, _Alloc::size_type, _Alloc::size_type) const':
D:/mingw-gcc3/include/c++/3.2.2/bits/basic_string.tcc:712: parse error 
before `(' token

The reason seems to be the macro definition of min in windef.h and the 
use of "std::" in line 712 of basic_string.tcc.  The simplest cure seems 
to be removing "std::" from line 712 of basic_string.tcc ().  Another 
way is to define NOMINMAX before entering windows.h.

Considering the heavy use of min/max in standard C++ code (including gcc 
headers), I think the best way to cure this problem is not to define 
min/max by default for C++ in windef.h:

--- windef.h.orig       Sun Feb 09 22:47:03 2003
+++ windef.h    Mon Mar 03 15:38:25 2003
@@ -135,7 +135,7 @@
  #endif
  #endif

-#ifndef NOMINMAX
+#if !defined(__cplusplus) || defined(USEMINMAX)
  #ifndef max
  #define max(a,b) ((a)>(b)?(a):(b))
  #endif

Danny, how to do think about it?

Best regards,

Wu Yongwei