compiling win32 apps under linux?

hmm, seems that I answered my own question by scrolling down a few posts....

I take it that this is what I want?











Is there a way to compile win32 apps using linux? At work we program lots of MFC and use #include <windows>, but I'd like to be able to run linux to do my work on.

No that won't work. MingW is just a port of the GCC compiler forr Windows, it still uses the Win32 API.

To my knowledge there is no way to compile a Win32 App on Linux.

MinGW also has a *nix port for compiling windows executables with gcc.

Originally Posted by Scribbler

MinGW also has a *nix port for compiling windows executables with gcc.

When they are compiled are they Windows binaries or Linux binaries? Like can you copy them to a Win32 machine and expect them to run?

I didn't know such a thing existed. Thats kinda neat if it does.

It will create a windows .exe executable. So they will run on windows, or with wine.

Here's a quick Link to get you started looking for more information (the MinGW website isn't exactly intuitive sometimes).

I know this might be a little off track, but I have had success compiling windows applications using wine with hutch's MASM package. The QuickEditor worked fairly well. One issue was the linking, however it was a year ago, so I would have to re-research it. But I know it did work.

It must be possible to do using windows c++ compilers.

After reading this post I decided to install the mingw32 packages. The test HelloWorld.c MessageBox workded well, but I cannot seem to build a basic window. The linking process spits out:

Code:

/tmp/ccRECEGP.o(.text+0xc2):BasicWindow.c: undefined reference to `_GetStockObject@4'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [main_program] Error 1

This is the simple code that is being tested:

Code:

#include <windows.h>

LRESULT CALLBACK WindowFunc(HWND, UINT, WPARAM, LPARAM);

int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
                     HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
                     LPSTR     lpCmdLine,
                     int       nCmdShow)
{
    HWND hwnd;
    MSG msg;
    WNDCLASSEX wc;

    char szClass[] = "My Window";
    char szTitle[] = "Template";

    wc.cbSize = sizeof(WNDCLASSEX);
    wc.hInstance = hInstance;
    wc.lpszClassName = szClass;
    wc.lpfnWndProc = WindowFunc;
    wc.style = 0;
    wc.hIcon = LoadIcon(NULL, IDI_APPLICATION);
    wc.hIconSm = LoadIcon(NULL, IDI_WINLOGO);
    wc.hCursor = LoadCursor(NULL, IDC_ARROW);
    wc.lpszMenuName = NULL;
    wc.cbClsExtra = 0;
    wc.cbWndExtra = 0;
    wc.hbrBackground = (HBRUSH) GetStockObject(WHITE_BRUSH);

    if(!RegisterClassEx(&wc)) return 0;

    hwnd = CreateWindow(
        szClass,
        szTitle,
        WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW,
        CW_USEDEFAULT,
        CW_USEDEFAULT,
        CW_USEDEFAULT,
        CW_USEDEFAULT,
        HWND_DESKTOP,
        NULL,
        hInstance,
        NULL
        );

    ShowWindow(hwnd, nCmdShow);
    UpdateWindow(hwnd);

    while(GetMessage(&msg, NULL, 0, 0))        
    {
        TranslateMessage(&msg);
        DispatchMessage(&msg);
    }

    return msg.wParam;
}

LRESULT CALLBACK WindowFunc(HWND hwnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{        
    switch(message)    {
    case WM_DESTROY:
        PostQuitMessage(0);
        break;
    default:
        return DefWindowProc(hwnd, message, wParam, lParam);
    }
    
    return 0;
}

Does anyone know how to correct this problem?

be sure when you compile you use the -mwindows switch

Code:

gcc source.c -mwindows

otherwise it won't link against the windows libraries.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Now... since my system is running Debian 3.1, I used synaptic to install the mingw32 packages, however it would seem that the gcc compiler does not want to respond to the -mwindows switch. Perhaps it is, but the errors are more now.

The first time the application was compiled the I used a makefile that which contains the following:

Code:

NAME = BasicWindow
COMPILE = i586-mingw32msvc-gcc
OPTIONS = -L/usr/i586-mingw32msvc/lib -llibgdi32.a -I/usr/i586-mingw32msvc/include
main_program :$(NAME).c 
    $(COMPILE) $(NAME).c -o $(NAME).exe $(OPTIONS)

Anytime the application was compiled to the point of receiving the GetStockObject error, I was using the i586-mingw32msvc-gcc command.

Also, in the above makefile I receive an error indidcating that it cannot find the libgdi32.a library.

What do I need to do to correct these problems?

It sounds like when you run just `gcc' its using the standard Linux compiler, not the MinGW compiler. You may want to try it with the -v switch (maybe its --version ?) to get the version information and be sure its the MinGW one.

You may want to give it a shot with the `i586-mingw32msvc-gcc ' command, as in:

Code:

i586-mingw32msvc-gcc source.c -mwindows

Assuming the makefile is using the right executable for the compiler you might be able to just add the -mwindows switch to the OPTIONS and get it to work:

Code:

NAME = BasicWindow
COMPILE = i586-mingw32msvc-gcc
OPTIONS = -L/usr/i586-mingw32msvc/lib -llibgdi32.a -I/usr/i586-mingw32msvc/include -mwindows
main_program :$(NAME).c 
    $(COMPILE) $(NAME).c -o $(NAME).exe $(OPTIONS)

Past that I'm not really sure what else could be the issue. I haven't spent a lot of time using it on Linux.

Thank-you very much Exile Your help has made it possible. All I had to do was add the -mwindows switch to the makefile compile line.

I am not sure why it has to be there, but it works. I would think that using the i586-mingw32msvc-gcc command would know it was mwindows. Oh well.

Just another note;
Why are these applications so large? When the basic window application is compiled it is 208Kb. Debug info? If so, how do you remove it?

After using upx -9 BasicWindow.exe the program ended up at 76.5Kb. Still, that is not very small.

Even on windows you need to include that switch. As far as I can tell it just sets up the libraries that need to be linked to. Not sure why they don't use normal linking, like -lX11 for XWindows.