View source for Building LDC on MinGW x86

This page is a step-by-step guide to setting up a development environment for LDC based on MinGW.

'''Note:''' These instructions were last verified to work on date '''04 February 2014''', using LDC commit '''704ab30001582dc67084e6ea8967e61e8112d595'''.

The resulting compiler will create 32 bit executables. Due to the different exception handling models, it is not currently possible to use LDC to target 64 bit Windows/MinGW. Running the 32 bit compiler on a 64 bit Windows system is entirely possible, however.

Note that the below instructions refer to precise package versions and file system paths. The intention behind this is to record a known-good configuration. Newer releases or differing paths will probably work as well ''if you know what you are doing''.

# Get a ''recent'' build of '''MinGW-w64''' for i686 (i.e. 32 bit) targets, with DWARF2-style exception handling ('''-dw2'''). A fresh build is required because support for the ''SECREL32'' relocation type needed to implement TLS was only recently added to GNU <tt>as</tt>, and TLS support in the MinGW runtime was broken:
#* Download and extract [http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/Toolchains%20targetting%20Win32/Personal%20Builds/rubenvb/gcc-4.8-dw2-release/i686-w64-mingw32-gcc-dw2-4.8.0-win32_rubenvb.7z/download i686-w64-mingw32-gcc-dw2-4.8.0-win32_rubenvb.7z], renaming the top folder to <tt>C:\MinGW</tt>.
#* You can also use newer builds of '''MinGW-w64''' for i686. E.g. [http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/Toolchains%20targetting%20Win32/Personal%20Builds/mingw-builds/4.9.1/threads-posix/dwarf/i686-4.9.1-release-posix-dwarf-rt_v3-rev1.7z/download i686-4.9.1-release-posix-dwarf-rt_v3-rev1] is known to work. Download the [http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/latest/download?source=files installer] and choose a gcc version, architecture i686, posix threads and dwarf exceptions. If this fails then you can find the files [http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/Toolchains%20targetting%20Win32/Personal%20Builds/mingw-builds/ here].
# Install MSYS and the usual tools like Git:
#* Download [http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/files/external-binary-packages/msys%2B7za%2Bwget%2Bsvn%2Bgit%2Bmercurial%2Bcvs-rev13.7z/download msys+7za+wget+svn+git+mercurial+cvs-rev13.7z] from the MinGW-Builds project, extract it to <tt>C:\MinGW</tt>, add <tt>C:\MinGW\   /mingw</tt> to <tt>C:\MinGW\msys\etc\fstab</tt>.
#* Ensure that C:\MinGW is in your PATH and make sure you're using the GCC version downloaded above by checking the output of <tt>gcc.exe --version</tt>. 
#* For your own sanity, you might want to use something like [http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/ Console2] to handle the MinGW shell (set the shell to <tt>C:\MinGW\msys\bin\bash.exe --login -i</tt>).
# Install CMake 2.8.11 using the Windows installer from http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html, making sure it is on your MSYS <tt>$PATH</tt> (e.g. by letting the installer put it on your <tt>%PATH%</tt>).
#* ''Optional: Install [http://martine.github.com/ninja/ Ninja] ([https://github.com/martine/ninja/releases binaries]) somewhere on your MSYS <tt>$PATH</tt> for shorter compile times, especially on incremental builds. If you don't want to use Ninja, simply change the CMake generator to Makefiles (<tt>-G"MSYS Makefiles"</tt>) and use <tt>make (install)</tt> instead of the <tt>ninja</tt> commands.''
# LLVM:
#* Fetch the LLVM 3.4 source: Either use the [http://llvm.org/releases/download.html#3.4 release tarball] or checkout the ''release_34'' branch of the SVN/Git (http://llvm.org/git/llvm.git) repository.
#* Build and install it: <tt>cd /n/Build/Work/llvm-3.4-release && cmake /c/Build/Source/llvm/ -G Ninja -DLLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD=X86 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/n/Build/Intermediate/llvm-3.4-release -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release && ninja && ninja install</tt>.
# Fetch the [http://www.hyperrealm.com/libconfig/libconfig-1.4.9.tar.gz ''libconfig++'' tarball] and install it (<tt>./configure; make; make install</tt>). Don't try an out-of-source build, directory seperator issues tend to break the Makefiles.
# LDC:
#* Clone the repository: <tt>git clone --recursive https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc.git</tt>
#* Build it: <tt>cmake /c/Build/Source/ldc/ -G Ninja -DLLVM_ROOT_DIR='/n/Build/Intermediate/llvm-3.4-release' -DLIBCONFIG++_INCLUDE_DIR=/local/include -DLIBCONFIG++_LIBRARY=/local/lib/libconfig++.dll.a -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release && ninja</tt>
# Additional dependencies:
#* You will probably want to install libcurl in order to use std.net.curl (including as part of the test suite): Just fetch the latest [http://curl.haxx.se/download.html source release], extract it, and run <tt>./configure --prefix=/mingw && make && make install</tt>. Installing to <tt>/mingw</tt> is not strictly necessary, but will save you from manually specifying the path anywhere.

[[Category:LDC]]