lib-mingw 和 lib-vc2019 有什么区别

Question

I'm new to Windows programming and found that lots of prebuilt libraries for Windows offer libraries like lib-mingw, lib-vc2019, lib-vc2017...

Could anyone help to point out

1. what is the difference? Which library should I use in what case?
2. If I want to use Clang on Windows, which one should I use?
3. Why these different libraries rarely seen on Linux (let's say Ubuntu), does package managers like apt hide this detail? In other word, why there's no such thing like lib-gcc.a, lib-clang.a on Linux platform?

Answer 1

1. Mingw (GCC), VC2019 and VC2017 are different compilers. Use the library corresponding to your compiler.

2. I'm not sure but I think none of them will work with Clang. At least on Linux GCC and Clang are very similar. I mean they are mostly binary compatible, many same compiler flags, many same compiler extensions. Clang tried to make it possible to easily replace GCC in your build pipeline. But all these information is for Linux.

3. These libraries are not seen on Linux because all these compilers are Windows compilers

You can always build a library with your compiler to use it in your project with your compiler (if you have the sources).

If it's a third party closed source library and you are a paying customer you can ask if they build it for you. It's usually better the add a new compiler to the build pipeline than to lose a customer.