Re: cl.exe and system types

[Sébastien Hinderer]

Keith Marshall (2018/08/24 10:50 +0100):
> > But why would you include a "mingw" string in something that does
> > not use mingw at all?
> 
> Because it's an OS name already known to config.sub, and because it's
> an OS designator which is specific to native MS-Windows software
> builds, (but see below).  Also, "MinGW" is a contraction of
> "Minimalist GNU for Windows", and you are using at least one GNU tool
> (autoconf) in your build process.

True. If I wanted to nitpick I'd say that since it's used only during
the build it would be okay to have it in the description of the build
environment but not in the one of the host environment, but if it has to
descibe the build *process* rather than the build environment, then you
are certainly right.

> > Ah I quite like this idea, thanks! Let's see whether it's doable!
> > :)
> 
> It is:

Yep I had no doubt actually, thanks for having provided the example
though!!

> Note that I've run this on GNU/Linux, so cl.exe doesn't really exist;
> I've kludged it as a hard link to gcc.

Okay thanks for telling, the results looked a bit odd (e.g. name of
default output file).

> Okay.  I wasn't aware that config.sub already understands "windows",
> (and indeed, it even understands an arbitrary suffix appended to
> "windows", provided there's no hyphen within it).

Am I correct that you know all this merely by reading config.sub, or is
there another documentation I am not aware of?

> If you are happy to
> interpret "--host=windows", (or any canonical triplet which ends with
> "-windows"), to implicitly require cl.exe, then you could adapt:
> 
>   AS_CASE([$host_alias],[*windows | *mingw*cl],[CC=cl.exe])
> 
> or otherwise, you could qualify it:
> 
>   AS_CASE([$host_alias],[*windowsmsvc | *mingw*cl],[CC=cl.exe])

Yeah, I think I am happy with this solution. At least as a starting
point. Why would you keep the two cases by the way? Wouldn't one be
enough?

I mean, am I correct that the mingw*cl could be removed?

> > For the 64 bits architecture, it seems the followingworks:
> > 
> > ./configure --build=x86_64-unknown-cygwin --host=x86_64-pc-windows
> > CC=cl
> 
> This should also work, with any of the preceding adaptations.
> 
> > Do you guys think I can proceed with these values for build and
> > host?
> 
> I don't see why not; you've nothing to lose by trying.

Indeed. Many thanks for having helped with this!

Best wishes,

Sébastien.