Re: question about Perl with Mingw

--- On Fri, 6/25/10, kmx wrote:
> Technically it is possible (you just have to avoid mixing
> 32/64bit perl
> and gcc compiler).

Okay, good.  Was surprised there wasn't some documentation on this somewhere.

> Please note that since 5.12 release strawberry uses gcc
> 4.4.3 toolchain
> from http://mingw-w64.sf.net project not from http://mingw.org
> - the
> main reason was that mingw.org delivers just 32bit compiler
> whereas
> mingw-w64.sf.net delivers both 32 and 64bit native gcc
> compiler. I
> personally do not see any reason why strawberry should
> switch back.

Am using MinGW 4.5 (http://www.mingw.org) and just as Strawberry developers may not want to switch, I also do not care to switch compilers or have to maintain and use up space for more compilers than already necessary on my system.  I've been involved with the MinGW community since close to the beginning and would prefer to work with a version of MinGW supported by that community.  I am not familiar with how reliable or helpful support is from other gnu gcc fork projects on Windows.  Am also not sure how up-to-date they are compared to gcc versions on other platforms.

Apart from mingw compiler (gcc toolchain + binutils + C-runtime) you need:
> 1/ dmake.exe = absolute must
> 
> 2/ patch.exe, pexports.exe, gmake.exe or mingw32-make.exe
> (for building
> some modules from CPAN)

Doesn't sound like a problem.  I already have most of that.

> 3/ Keep in mind that c:\strawberry\c directory does not
> contain only gcc
> compiler but also a bunch of external libraries (libexpat,
> libgdbm,
> berkeleydb, libxml2, libxslt, openssl, mysql, postgres,
> gmp, mpc, mpfr
> and many others). These libs are needed for building
> certain perl
> modules. You can download them separately from
> http://strawberryperl.com/package/kmx/32_libs

I'll check out the link.  I'm involved with a cross-platform project that's automating the builds of Open Source libraries and applications, which can be very useful when you update compilers or operating systems.  Sounds like this could make a good test for the build system.

Thanks.