Use cygwin to run autotools for MSVC?

Use cygwin to run autotools for MSVC?

[Mike Gran]

Hi-
Is it possible use Cygwin to run an autotools 'configure' script but have the compiler be MSVC?
Thanks,
Michael

Re: Use cygwin to run autotools for MSVC?

[Csaba Raduly]

Hi Mike,

On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 9:31 PM Mike Gran via Cygwin <cygwin@cygwin.com>
wrote:

> Hi-
> Is it possible use Cygwin to run an autotools 'configure' script but have
> the compiler be MSVC?
>

I would be very surprised if this worked. 'configure' is likely to run the
compiler with unix-style flags (started with hyphens) rather than DOS-style
flags (started with forward slashes). cl.exe may accept only DOS-style
flags.

Also, MSVC won't be able to find Cygwin's include files, and even if it
did, most likely won't be able to compile them.

The whole thing sounds like a recipe for failure. What are you trying to
achieve?


Csaba
-- 
You can get very substantial performance improvements
by not doing the right thing. - Scott Meyers, An Effective C++11/14 Sampler
So if you're looking for a completely portable, 100% standards-conformant
way
to get the wrong information: this is what you want. - Scott Meyers
(C++TDaWYK)

Re: Use cygwin to run autotools for MSVC?

[Eliot Moss]

On 3/26/2020 5:37 PM, Csaba Raduly via Cygwin wrote:
> Hi Mike,
> 
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 9:31 PM Mike Gran via Cygwin <cygwin@cygwin.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Hi-
>> Is it possible use Cygwin to run an autotools 'configure' script but have
>> the compiler be MSVC?
>>
> 
> I would be very surprised if this worked. 'configure' is likely to run the
> compiler with unix-style flags (started with hyphens) rather than DOS-style
> flags (started with forward slashes). cl.exe may accept only DOS-style
> flags.
> 
> Also, MSVC won't be able to find Cygwin's include files, and even if it
> did, most likely won't be able to compile them.
> 
> The whole thing sounds like a recipe for failure. What are you trying to
> achieve?

All that said, I _have_ seen build processes organized to give MSVC
as an option ... and that in fact sometimes make it hard to do a Cygwin
build because they "want" to do a native Windows build!

However, this may have been more just a canned Makefile than a whole
./configure process ...

Eliot

Re: Use cygwin to run autotools for MSVC?

[Peter Dons Tychsen]

Hi Mike,

> Is it possible use Cygwin to run an autotools 'configure' script but
> have the compiler be MSVC?

Yeah, sure, i have done this in the past.

"./configure CC=cl.exe" should get you going as far as i remember. Make
sure your MS tools are in your PATH.

There are limitations though, as some of library search mechanisms in
autoconf will not work as expected, so do not expect larger projects to
work without having to hack a bit in those nasty M4 macro files
(yikes!).

But for simple projects it does actually work, which is what i used it
for. I have not tried it recently, but i guess it still is supported.

Thanks,

/pedro