[open-cobol-list] open-cobol-0.23.1 for MinGW port

[Keiichi Takahashi]

Hi all,

I've updated MinGW port of OpenCOBOL 0.23.

open-cobol-023_028.exe

This is based on the experimental source supplied by Keisuke Nishida:

*This is experimental!*
http://www.nurs.or.jp/~knishida/open-cobol-0.23.1.tar.gz

Main difference from the official released source,
open-cobol-0.23.tar.gz is creating DLL of libcob for Win32 environment
when building. Thanks for quick support for Win32 port, Nishida-San.

But still there are some issues for building DLL with configure and
make, which would be mainly for exporting symbols outside from DLL, I am
guessing. Then the DLL and the import library in the
open-cobol-023_028.exe awere specially built by me.


In order to use the OpenCOBOL on Windows, you need to obtain and install
following packages:

- MinGW base kit, bitWalk build #026
  mingw_026.exe

- MinGW tools, bitWalk build #020
  mingw_tools_020.exe

- OpenCOBOL 0.23.1, bitWalk build #028
  open-cobol-023_028.exe

All above can be obtained at:

http://www63.tok2.com/home/bitwalk/download.html

If you are interested in using OpenCOBOL on Windows, please try them.


*Note*
There would be still problems with this package. Currently, the issue I
see is:

The (auto-import) warning(s) are observed whennever compiling.

(example)
E:\test\cobol>cobc hello.cob
Info: resolving _cob_alnum_attr by linking to __imp__cob_alnum_attr
(auto-import)
Info: resolving _cob_return_code by linking to __imp__cob_return_code
(auto-import)

E:\test\cobol>hello
Hello World!


The porpose of building DLL, libcob-1.dll is for linking dynamic module.

In the previous version of OpenCOBOL, following compiling did not work well:

E:\test\cobol>cobc foo.cob
(This, foo.exe is supposed to be a main program.)

E:\test\cobol>cobc -m sub.cob
(This, sub.dll is supposed tbe a sub program called by foo.exe with CALL
statement.)

Executing hello.exe makes the following warnings:

E:\test\cobol>foo.exe
warning: cob_init expected in the main program


With this package, such warning has gone, but headache is the message like:

Info: resolving _cob_xxxx by linking to __imp__cob_xxxx (auto-import)

This message is not fatal but something annoying for me.


With the above MinGW environment, MinGW base kit and MinGW tools, and
MSYS ( http://sf.net/projects/mingw ), you can compile open-cobol-0.23.1
by yourself, just typing:

$ tar zxvf open-cobol-0.23.1.tar.gz
$ cd open-cobol-0.23.1
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install


I believe you could realize what is the current problem in building DLL
if you do.

Any helps and comments will be greatly appreciated, thanx.

Best Wishes,
Keiichi


-- 
Keiichi Takahashi, bitWalk Co.,Ltd.
mailto:address@hidden
http://b2c-1.rocketbeach.com/~bitwalk/