Re: -jN using cl.exe and not gcc

[J. Grant]

Hi Sandy,

> But, to run multiple instances of cl.exe at the same time (-jN),
> one needs to create individual secondary files (in unique places)
> to keep multiple cl.exe processes from stepping on themselves.
> But doing so appears to be a bad thing since there are now
> multiple instances of these files with partial (project) data in
> them as opposed to a single instance of the file.

The pch file could be created once at the beginning of your Makefile for
the build.  If you need pdb complete I do not know of a way of using
multiple cl.exe on individual files in a project.

> Does anyone on this list have any experience trying to parallel-ize
> windows compiles using cl.exe?

If your software is modular it may already consist of libraries, in
which case you could compile more than one library in a sub-directory at
a time which would have a similar time saving if you have mutiple CPU
etc.  You could call also cl.exe with multiple source files at a time,
which is a little quicker in my experience.

> Any advice/thoughts/prior art?  Best practice?

Use gcc?  You could just use http://www.mingw.org/ a gcc port with
native win32 support.

Regards

JG