Re: [Mingw-users] mxe and mingw

[Tony T. <ton...@gm...>]

On 06/08/2013, at 4:05 PM, Werner LEMBERG <wl...@gn...> wrote:

> 
> I have a probably naïve question: Are mxe and mingw equivalent?  I
> mean, if I cross-compile an application with mxe on, say, a GNU/Linux
> box, is this the same as if I would do a native build on Windows with
> mingw, not counting the issues which arise by cross-compilation
> itself?
> 
> Background to my question: It would be a tremendous simplification for
> me if I could compile a package with mxe, and if this succeeds, I
> would automatically know that it compiles out of the box with mingw
> too.

It's probably easier to think of mxe as a derivative of the unmodified mingw runtime and api - with minor differences in versions/options for the compiler toolchain, and an additional layer of cross-compile configuration. They're equivalent at the lowest level, and there's not a lot of difference (for practical purposes) in the toolchain.

The additional layer of cross-compile configuration means that if it compiles with mxe, it *must* be compatible with the runtime, and you've already done a superset of the work required for a native build. This doesn't mean it will always compile out of the box, but at most will only require very trivial tweaking for the native build.

Cheers,

Tony