  This file describes how to compile the package for Win32  systems using
GNU tools as provided by Cygnus' Cygwin package (Cygnus is currently part of
Red Hat).

$Id: cygwin.txt,v 1.3 2003/06/26 19:15:58 set Exp $

1. INTRODUCTION
2. COMPILING AND INSTALLING


1. INTRODUCTION

  Cygwin provides a POSIX environment for Win32 systems based on GNU tools.
It makes quite easy to compile programs adapted for GNU tools. In order to
compile this package you have to install the tools listed in
doc/install/tools.txt
  A short list of the needed tools is:
  bash, binutils, fileutils, gcc, gpp, gettext, make, perl, shellutils,
texinfo and textutils.
  I experimented some bizarre problems while using Perl from Cygwin
distribution so I switched to the version distributed by djgpp package. You
can find information about djgpp in: http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/
  I hope the problems are fixed in a newer version of Cygwin tools but
lamentably I don't have time to test it. Volunteers will be welcome.
  Some users reported success using the UNIX tarball instead of the .zip
file. But I think it depends on the way you configured Cygwin.
  You can compile the library to run under Win32 platforms using various
compilers, for this reason I explain the dis/advantages of using Cygwin for
it.

Advantages:

* Unlike djgpp it generates a Win32 executable, so it integrates better with
Windows NT incarnations (NT, 2000, XP, etc.).
* GCC is very good optimizing code.
* You can use the configure script to fine tune the compilation process.
* The installation is automated.

Disadvantages:

* The resulting binary needs a special DLLs provided by Cygwin.
* The available compiler and the whole tools are really slow. GCC 3.x is too
slow to compile C++ and the Win32 port is even worst.
* I don't use the resulting binary too much so it is more probable to find
bugs not found in the same version compiled with other compilers.


2. COMPILING & INSTALLING

  Once you installed all the needed tools your system will become some kind
of GNU/Win32 system. For this reason you can just follow the instructions found
in doc/install/unix.txt
  I tested this process using Cygwin 1.3.3-2.

