DMD - Windows

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Trass3r" <un at known.com> wrote in message news:op.v7ofwpwh3ncmek at enigma...
>> 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).
>
> I say get rid of that freakin' dinosaur. Pull requests are already piling 
> up, we can't afford losing more time.
>

I can't say I disagree :/  (So who's up for adding COFF support to DMD?)

>> (This is issue also happens to be the main thing blocking 64-bit on 
>> Windows.)
>
> Not quite true. You need 64Bit: object format, linker, librarian, debug 
> info, compiler.
>

Well, ok, *one of* the main things ;)

>> - 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.
>
> Did you ever try that?? You can't even mention that, let alone recommend 
> it.
>

Depends on the lib really. DMC is a perfectly capable compiler as far as I 
can tell. It's just that some projects have fairly complex buildscripts that 
are fairly hardwired for MSVC and/or GCC. Anything with a sane buildsystem 
should be fine (though how common that is in C/C++-world, I can't say...).


>> - Use the Digital Mars COFF2OMF tool to convert to lib to OMF.
>> Unfortunately, the tool isn't free, but IIRC it's inexpensive.
>
> Doesn't matter. You already have to pay enough by having to deal with that 
> OMF crap.
>

Regardless, it *is* an option, so I listed it. I leave it up to others to 
decide if it's right for them.

>> 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.
>
> I'm sceptical.