Dub packages: Best practices for windows support

[Johannes Pfau via Digitalmars-d-learn]

Am Sat, 30 Jan 2016 01:17:13 +0000
schrieb Mike Parker <aldacron at gmail.com>:

> On Friday, 29 January 2016 at 19:46:40 UTC, Johannes Pfau wrote:
> 
> > Now on windows, things are more complicated. First of all, I 
> > can't seem
> > to simply use "libs": ["foo"] as the linker won't find the C
> > import .lib file. Then apparently there's no way to add a 
> > library search
> > path with the MSVC linker? So I have to use the full path:
> > "libs": [$PACKAGE_DIR\\path\\foo]. Without $PACKAGE_DIR paths 
> > are
> > incorrect for applications using the library because of a dub 
> > problem.
> > And then I'll have to use different import libraries and paths 
> > for -m32,
> > -m64 and -m32mscoff.  
> 
> Now you know my motivation for creating Derelict.
> 
> 
> > All this leads to the following questions:
> > * Should cairoD copy the DLLs for all applications using 
> > cairoD? This
> >   way simply adding a dependency will work. However, if users 
> > want to
> >   use a self compiled cairo DLL with fewer dependencies there's 
> > no easy
> >   way to disable the file copying?
> > * Should cairoD link in the .lib DLL import file? This might be 
> > useful
> >   even when not copying the DLLs. But if users want to link a 
> > custom
> >   import library that would be difficult. OTOH not copying DLLs 
> > and/or
> >   not linking the import library will make dub.json much more
> >   complicated for simple applications, especially if these 
> > applications
> >   want to support -m32, -m32mscoff and -m64.  
> 
> IMO, no to both of these (for now). Including all of these 
> dependencies is going to mean that all of your users, no matter 
> the platform, will pull the down with every new version of gtkd.  
> I recommend you provide all of the precompiled DLLs and import 
> libraries as a separate download and let the user do the 
> configuration needed to get it to link. Most Windows developers 
> are used to it. You can provide instructions for those who aren't.


Thanks for the detailed answer. Thinking about this some more, copying
the DLLs automatically is really a bad idea. The cairo dll depends on
Freetype, so I'd have to ship a Freetype dll as well. But cairoD
depends on DerelictFT and if DerelictFT then decided to also install
DLLs automatically anything could happen. So even in this simple case
installing DLLs for the user is not a good idea.