1 Chun-wei Fan `<fanc999@yahoo.com.tw>`
2 Philip Withnall `<withnall@endlessm.com>`
3 Nirbheek Chauhan `<nirbheek@centricular.com>`
5 This document was last updated in 2019. You're reading this in the future, and
6 lots of information might be misleading or outdated in your age. You have been
11 For prebuilt binaries (DLLs and EXEs) and developer packages (headers,
12 import libraries) of GLib, Pango, GTK+ etc for Windows, go to
13 https://www.gtk.org/download/windows.php . They are for "native"
14 Windows meaning they use the Win32 API and Microsoft C runtime library
15 only. No POSIX (Unix) emulation layer like Cygwin is involved.
17 To build GLib on Win32, you can use either GCC ("MinGW") or the Microsoft
18 Visual Studio toolchain. For the latter, Visual Studio 2015 and later are
19 recommended. For older Visual Studio versions, see below.
21 You can also cross-compile GLib for Windows from Linux using the
22 cross-compiling mingw packages for your distro.
24 Note that to just *use* GLib on Windows, there is no need to build it
27 On Windows setting up a correct build environment is very similar to typing
28 `meson; ninja` like on Linux.
30 The following preprocessor macros are to be used for conditional
31 compilation related to Win32 in GLib-using code:
33 - `G_OS_WIN32` is defined when compiling for native Win32, without
34 any POSIX emulation, other than to the extent provided by the
35 bundled Microsoft C library.
37 - `G_WITH_CYGWIN` is defined if compiling for the Cygwin
38 environment. Note that `G_OS_WIN32` is *not* defined in that case, as
39 Cygwin is supposed to behave like Unix. `G_OS_UNIX` *is* defined by a GLib
42 - `G_PLATFORM_WIN32` is defined when either `G_OS_WIN32` or `G_WITH_CYGWIN`
45 These macros are defined in `glibconfig.h`, and are thus available in
46 all source files that include `<glib.h>`.
48 Additionally, there are the compiler-specific macros:
49 - `__GNUC__` is defined when using GCC or Clang
50 - `__clang__` is defined when using Clang or Clang-CL
51 - `_MSC_VER` is defined when using MSVC or Clang-CL
53 `G_OS_WIN32` implies using the Microsoft C runtime, which used to be
54 `msvcrt.dll` and is now the [Universal CRT](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/c-runtime-library/crt-library-features?view=vs-2015)
55 when building with Visual Studio. When using the MinGW-GCC toolchain, the CRT
56 in use depends on the settings used while the toolchain was built. We highly
57 recommend [using the Universal CRT when building with
58 MinGW](https://mingwpy.github.io/ucrt.html) too.
60 GLib is not actively tested with the static versions of the UCRT, but if you
61 need to use those, patches are welcome.
63 # Building software that use GLib or GTK+
65 Building software that just *uses* GLib or GTK+ also require to have
66 the right compiler set up the right way. If you intend to use MinGW-GCC,
67 follow the relevant instructions below in that case, too.
69 You should link to GLib using the `-mms-bitfields` GCC flag. This flag means
70 that the struct layout rules are identical to those used by MSVC. This is
71 essential if the same DLLs are to be usable both from gcc- and MSVC-compiled
76 You should take care that the DLLs that your code links to are using the same
77 C runtime library. Not doing so can and likely will lead to panics and crashes
78 **unless** you're very careful while passing objects allocated by a library
79 linked with one CRT to a library linked to another CRT, or (more commonly) not
82 If you *do* pass CRT objects across CRT boundaries, do not file any issues
83 about whatever happens next.
85 To give an example, opening a `FILE` handle created by one CRT cannot be
86 understood by any other CRT, and will lead to an access violation. You also
87 cannot allocate memory in one CRT and free it using another.
89 There are [many other cases where you must not allow objects to cross CRT boundaries](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/c-runtime-library/potential-errors-passing-crt-objects-across-dll-boundaries?view=vs-2019),
90 but in theory if you're **very very** careful, you can make things work. Again,
91 please do not come to us for help if you choose to do this.
95 You can build GLib with MinGW-GCC, MSVC, or (experimentally) with Clang-CL.
97 For all compilers, you will need the following:
99 - Install Python 3.6.x or newer, either 32-bit or 64-bit. We recommend enabling
100 the option to add it to your `PATH`.
101 - [Install Meson](https://mesonbuild.com/Getting-meson.html)
102 - Install the [Ninja build tool](https://github.com/ninja-build/ninja/releases), which can also be
103 installed with `pip3`. You can skip this step if you want to generate Visual
104 Studio project files.
105 - [git for Windows](https://gitforwindows.org/) is required, since Meson makes
106 use of git to download dependencies using subprojects.
108 ## Building with MinGW-GCC
110 Open your MSYS or [MSYS2](https://www.msys2.org/) shell where you have the
111 MinGW-GCC toolchain installed, and build GLib [like any other Meson
112 project](https://mesonbuild.com/Quick-guide.html#compiling-a-meson-project).
114 ## Building with Visual Studio 2015 or newer
116 Meson is now the only supported method of building GLib using Visual Studio.
118 To do a build using Meson, do the following:
120 - Open a Visual Studio (or SDK) command prompt that matches the Visual Studio
121 version and build platform (Win32/x86, x64, etc.) that will be used in all
124 - Create an empty directory/folder for the build inside your GLib sources
125 directory, say, `_builddir`, and `cd` into it.
127 - Set up the build using Meson:
130 > meson .. --buildtype=<release|debug|debugoptimized> --prefix=<path> [--backend=vs]
133 Please see [the Meson docs](https://mesonbuild.com/Builtin-options.html#core-options)
134 for an explanation for `--buildtype`.
136 The path passed for `--prefix` need not to be on the same drive as where the
137 build is carried out, but it is recommended to use forward slashes for this
138 path. The `--backend=vs` option can be used if the Visual Studio project
139 generator is preferred over using Ninja.
141 - Build, test and install the build:
142 Run `ninja` to build, `meson test` to test and `meson install` to install the
143 build. If you used `--backend=vs`, instead of running `ninja`, you need to
144 use `msbuild` or you can open the generated solution in Visual Studio.
146 ## Building with old versions of Visual Studio
148 The steps are the same as above, with the following notes about issues that you might face.
150 ### C4819 build errors
152 If you are building GLib-based libraries or applications, or GLib itself
153 and you see a `C4819` error (or warning, before `C4819` is treated as an error
154 in `msvc_recommended_pragmas.h`), please be advised that this error/warning should
155 not be disregarded, as this likely means portions of the build are not being
156 done correctly, as this is an issue of Visual Studio running on CJK (East Asian)
157 locales. This is an issue that also affects builds of other projects, such as
158 QT, Firefox, LibreOffice/OpenOffice, Pango and GTK, along with many other projects.
160 To overcome this problem, please set your system's locale setting for non-Unicode to
161 English (United States), reboot, and restart the build, and the code should build
164 ### Visual Studio 2008 hacks
166 - You need to run the following lines from your build directory, to embed the
167 manifests that are generated during the build, assuming the built binaries
168 are installed to `$(PREFIX)`, after a successful build/installation:
171 > for /r %f in (*.dll.manifest) do if exist $(PREFIX)\bin\%~nf mt /manifest %f $(PREFIX)\bin\%~nf;2
172 > for /r %f in (*.exe.manifest) do if exist $(PREFIX)\bin\%~nf mt /manifest %f $(PREFIX)\bin\%~nf;1
176 - If building for amd64/x86_64/x64, sometimes the compilation of sources may seem to hang, which
177 is caused by an optimization issue in the 2008 x64 compiler. You need to use Task Manager to
178 remove all running instances of `cl.exe`, which will cause the build process to terminate. Update
179 the build flags of the sources that hang on compilation by changing its `"/O2"` flag to `"/O1"`
180 in `build.ninja`, and retry the build, where things should continue to build normally. At the
181 time of writing, this is needed for compiling `glib/gtestutils.c`, `gio/gsettings.c`,
182 `gio/gsettingsschema.c` and `gio/tests/gsubprocess-testprog.c`