Re: [Mingw-users] The situation with chown and dirname

[Eli Z. <el...@gn...>]

> From: <krz...@sy...>
> Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 13:31:13 +0200
> 
> I do not know why the program I am trying to build needs mkstemp and 
> realpath, it checks for these in configure.  I have not passed through 
> configure yet, so I cannot tell what they are really used for.

Most portable programs either supply replacements for functions that
are missing on the system, or have code to work around the missing
functionalities.

So I suggest to look in the sources for whether these functions are
really necessary, or just "nice to have".  Or just configure and try
building, and see if you get any error messages.  There are good
chances that there's no problem, even though some functions are
missing.

> However, let me say that mkstemp is indispensable in most programs—and 
> Microsoft Windows is notorious for its poor support for temporary files. 

As long as you need to build a Windows executable, the functionality
available on Windows is a given.  If you arrive at the conclusion that
you must have mkstemp etc., you can always write your own, or copy one
of the existing implementation on the Internet.  That's what I do when
I don't want to lose features in a ported program.