Re: [Plplot-general] Trouble with MinGW/wxWidgets build

[Jack D. <ja...@ge...>]

After much hacking I have succeeded in compiling and running the
wxPLplotDemo on my Eclipse/CDT/MingW & MSYS system.  I'm posting this in
case others want to try the same.  I do not pretend to understand all of
this.

The Eclipse/CDT/MingW & MSYS system is installed roughly as described in
http://wiki.wxwidgets.org/Eclipse,_CDT_&_MingW_&_MSYS_Setup_Guide
This document contains the caution: "If you plan to use other libraries
which depend on wxWidgets (e.g. PLplot), be aware that although this method
which uses ./configure to create the makefiles will result in Windows
libraries, it will not place them in the same paths as if you were to use
mingw32-make directly with the pre-existing makefiles. The location of
build.cfg may also be a significant factor. CMake, for example, can search
for wxWidgets via two independent methods labeled 'unix' and 'win32'. This
./configure method is not compatible with the 'win32' search method."

The above described issue was a problem (cmake did not find wxWidgets) when
I installed PLplot according to the procedure described in  the PLplot wiki
at 
http://www.miscdebris.net/plplot_wiki/index.php?title=Configure_PLplot_for_M
inGW/CLI

I was able to solve it by running the PLplot build in an MSYS window and
changing the cmake options.  Specifically, by setting the option MSYS=1,
cmake uses the "unix" method which calls wx-config to locate wxWidgets.  The
build must be run in an MSYS window instead of a Windows Command Prompt
window because wx-config is a shell script and Windows can't execute it.  I
also found that I had to explicitly turn set wxwidgets=ON and
PLD_wxwidgets=ON or else the wxWidgets driver for PLplot would not be built.
The modified procedure is (from the root of the unzipped PLplot directory):

mkdir buildmingw
cd buildmingw
cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" -DMSYS=1 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=install
-DBUILD_TEST=ON -DwxWidgets_CONFIGURATION=msw  -DENABLE_wxwidgets=ON
-DPLD_wxwidgets=ON  ..  
mingw32-make
mingw32-make install

(Everything from cmake to .. is one line, even though the email may wrap
it.)

This is probably doing it the hard way since the libraries and include files
end up in buildmingw\install and have to be manually copied to the \MinGW
directory.

Specifically, I copied all the *.dll.a files from buildmingw\install\lib to
\MinGW\lib and all the .dll files from buildmingw\install\bin to \MinGW\bin.
This step could probably be eliminated by changing
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=install to CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/c/MinGW but I have not
tested that.

To build wxPLplotDemo I created a project in Eclipse using as a guide the
wxWidgets sampleMinimal project created according to the procedure in
Eclipse,_CDT_&_MingW_&_MSYS_Setup_Guide.  The source files wxPLplotDemo.cpp,
wxPLplotstream.cpp, and wxPLplotwindow.cpp were put into this project and it
was built (using shared wxWidgets libraries).  It was necessary to
explicitly list the full path of buildmingw\install\include\plplot in
Eclipse Project-Properties-C/C++ Build-Settings-GCC C++
Compiler-Directories; and the full paths (MSYS style, e.g. /c/ ...
/buildmingw/ /install/lib/libcsirocsa.dll.a) of all the 
dll.a files in Eclipse Project-Properties-C/C++ Build-Settings-GCC C++
Linker-Miscellaneous-Linker flags.

Strangely, the project would build if wxPLplotstream.cpp and
wxPLplotwindow.cpp were not put in the project (presumably they were linked
from the dlls) but the resulting program would crash without displaying a
window.  The Windows error report contained the information:
AppName: plplotdemo.exe	 AppVer: 0.0.0.0	 ModName:
libplplotwxwidgetsd.dll
ModVer: 0.0.0.0	 Offset: 001620f0.

This is obviously a kludgy mess and I may encounter problems yet.  I hope
this is useful to someone, and I would welcome and suggestions about how to
make it cleaner.

Jack Dodds