C: Running Unix configure file in Windows

Question

I would like to port a few applications that I use on Linux to Windows. In particular I have been working on wdiff . A program that compares the differences word by word of two files.

Currently I have been able to successfully compile the program on windows through Cygwin. However, I would like to run the program natively on Windows similar to the Project: UnixUtils .

How would I go about porting unix utilities on a windows environment?

My possible guess it to manually create the ./configure file so that I can create a proper makefile. Am I on the right track? Has anyone had experience porting GNU software to windows?

Update:

I've compiled it on Code::Blocks and I get two errors:

• wdiff.c|226|error: `SIGPIPE' undeclared (first use in this function)

• readpipe.c:71: undefined reference to `_pipe'

• readpipe.c:74: undefined reference to `_fork

This is a linux signal that is not supported by windows... equvilancy?

• wdiff.c|1198|error: `PRODUCT' undeclared (first use in this function)|

this is in the configure.in file... hardcode would probably be the fastest solution...

Outcome:

MSYS took care of the configure problems, however MinGW couldnt solve the posix issues. I attempt to utilize pthreads as recommended by mrjoltcola. However, after several hours I couldnt get it to compile nor link using the provided libraries. I think if this had worked it would have been the solution I was after. Special mention to Michael Madsen for MSYS.

Answer 1

Yes. If you stick to the standard C library, and POSIX functions, most is available on Windows. You may just have to find the implementations. There are implementations of things that do not require Cywgin or MinGW (such as a pthreads package, etc.)

Also, there is a great book that is written in the style of W. Richard Steven's Advanced Proramming in the UNIX Environment , and the book is Windows System Programming , author Johnson Hart. He has a 4th edition. It focuses on System Programming, there is no GUI treatment whatsoever.

http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Programming-Addison-Wesley-Microsoft-Technology/dp/0321657748

It is the best book I know of for a UNIX programming moving to Windows.

Answer 2

You can have a look at MinGW (and MSYS), which are similar to cygwin, but gcc produce native Windows executables. However, since the Unix emulation is not as good as cygwin, you may have to adjust your code.

Answer 3

Always try to following standarts even when porting applications. POSIX compliant compilers exist on windows/Linux. You can try mingw. It has full toolchain required to build standart POSIX application (GNU Linux as well). Check out Dev-Cpp it eases the work.

Answer 4

MinGW is about the easiest way to get gcc and associated binary utilities (including gdb) on a Windows PC. It includes header files and import libraries so that you can call native Windows APIs. If you want more of an integrated IDE development environment you could download Microsoft's free Visual Studio Express C++ .

Either way you'll likely have to convert some of the function calls to use Windows specific APIs (if you want a book I'd also recommend the Hart book mentioned in mrjoltcola's answer). For simple command line tools this conversion is usually not a huge deal, the big porting nightmares tend to involve tools with GUIs which have deep embedded dependencies on the GUI framework provided by the OS.