"How to build GCJ for Windows"

[Ranjit Mathew]

Erik Poupaert wrote:
>>>>> I have put together a small document and supporting
>>>>> shell scripts that can be used to build GCJ for Windows
>>>>> using the MinGW toolchain and my patches:
>>>>> http://ranjitmathew.tripod.com/phartz/gcj/bldgcj.html
> 
> This procedure requires cross-compiling from linux; which is way, way better
> than nothing at all. Is there any chance, however, that mingw could ever
> natively build itself? That would truly be marvellous.

Since I've built GCJ 3.2 using these scripts on both Linux
as well as Solaris, theoretically it should be possible to
do it using Cygwin (or even MSYS) on Windows as well.

Be warned though that on Windows filesystems, file/folder names
are case insensitive and this caused me problems with
the "java.awt.event" package and the "java.awt.Event"
class - ditto for "java.awt.image" v/s "java.awt.Image".
My "solution" was to remove AWT packages completely, since
they didn't work anyways.

Another issue is that, at least on my machine, the build
process on Linux beats it on Win98SE hands down - as I mention
in my document *both* the build cycles on Linux finish
within 3 hours while the single Win98SE build takes 5.5 hours!

Lastly, I'm way more comfortable on Linux than on Windows - I
feel it's a much saner and far more productive environment
for a developer - I use Win98 only for playing games. ;-)

My 2p.

In any case, my first attempt was indeed to build it natively
using MinGW/MSYS:

http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/java/2002-09/msg00072.html

I pretty quickly gave up on this approach due to the problems
I mention above.

Good Luck!

Sincerely Yours,
Ranjit.

-- 
Ranjit Mathew          Email: rmathew AT hotmail DOT com

Bangalore, INDIA.      Web: http://ranjitmathew.tripod.com/