DMD - Windows

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Manu" <turkeyman at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.118.1325874486.16222.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
> Okay, so I was trying to link to a C lib, and I realised... DMD doesn't
> support/produce VS compatible libs.
> I should have realised this sooner, noting the cv debuginfo.
>
> So like... WTF?
>
> How am I supposed to use DMD in Windows in anything other than trivial,
> self-contained programs?
> VisualC is the de facto standard in Windows. All libs are COFF, and 
> (unless
> I'm working with GCC) everything I want to link to is produced from VC.
>
> Let's also mention the debug info... Virtually every 3rd party tool 
> assumes
> and/or works best with PDB debug info. Being required to run cv2pdb is
> pretty lame.
>
> So... why no support for COFF libs, and PDB debug info?
> Surely at least a compiler option would do the business if there is some
> kinky attachment to CV and OMF :/
>
> I was hoping to start a project using D as a front end language 
> interacting
> with my C/C++ engine lib... but I can't.
> ... and now that I think if it... how do ANY programs built with DMD
> actually work? .. How does it link to system32.lib, user32.lib, etc?
>

Yea, OMF is actually #1 PITA on Windows right now, unfortunately.

The problem: On windows, DMD uses the Optlink linker. Optlink only supports 
OMF right now (OMF used to be commonly used by Borland, IIRC). Optlink was 
written entirely in asm so changing it is difficult. But Walter has been, 
piece-by-piece, porting it to C (and then he'll port it to D). (This is 
issue also happens to be the main thing blocking 64-bit on Windows.)

There are a few solutions right now (in no particular order):

- Recompile the libs using DMC (the Digital Mars C/C++ compiler). That will 
result in an OMF lib file that can be used with DMD.

- Link with Unilink instead of DMD/Optlink. Unilink can link both OMF and 
COFF together just fine. I don't have a link offhand, and it's a little 
funky to learn how to use since the docs aren't very good, but I'm sure 
someone here will chime in (or you can search the archives, I know comeone 
posted a good introduction to it not too long ago).

- Use the Digital Mars COFF2OMF tool to convert to lib to OMF. 
Unfortunately, the tool isn't free, but IIRC it's inexpensive.

- Use LDC or GDC instead of DMD. I think those work with COFF.

- If the library comes in a DLL version, you can download the free IMPLIB 
tool and use it to generate an OMF import library directly from the DLL 
(it'll still actually link to the DLL at runtime).

- Search/Ask around: Someone may have already created an OMF version of the 
lib.

The IMPLIB and COFF2OMF tools are here: 
http://www.digitalmars.com/download/freecompiler.html  IMPLIB is in the free 
"Basic Utilities" package, and COFF2OMF is in the "Extended Utilities 
Package"

If you feel this is all still a big pain in the ass: Don't worry, everyone 
here agrees with you, and the situation will not remain like this forever.