MinGW
Encyclopedia
MinGW formerly mingw32, is a native software port
of the GNU Compiler Collection
(GCC) and GNU Binutils for use in the development of native Microsoft Windows
applications; MinGW can function either as a cross compiler
targeting Windows or as a native toolchain
run on Windows itself. It is deployed along with a set of freely distributable import libraries and header files for the Windows API
.
port of GCC
. Jan-Jaap van der Heijden created a Windows-native port of GCC and added binutils and make. Mumit Khan later took over development, adding more Windows-specific features to the package, including the Win32 headers by Anders Norlander. In 2000, the project was moved to SourceForge.net
in order to solicit more assistance from the community and centralize its development.
MinGW was selected as Project of the Month at SourceForge.net
for September 2005.
(for example, GNU libstdc++ for C++).
However, because GCC does not supply its own C runtime library, MinGW's C compiler targets Microsoft's old Visual C
runtime library, MSVCRT, which was released in 1998 and therefore does not include support for C99
features (let alone all of C89
); while targeting MSVCRT yields programs that are as native as possible, the lack of support for C99 has caused porting problems, particularly where printf
-style conversion specifiers are concerned. These issues have been partially mitigated by the implementation of a C99 compatibility library, libmingwex, but the extensive work required is far from complete and may never be fully realized.
, such as GCC
and binutils, translated into equivalent packages. These utilities can be used from the Windows command line or integrated into an IDE
.
MinGW supports libraries named according to the ".lib" and".dll" conventions, in addition to the normal "lib.a" convention common on Unix-like systems.
In addition, a component of MinGW known as MSYS (Minimal SYStem) provides win32 ports of a lightweight Unix-like shell environment including rxvt
and a selection of POSIX
tools sufficient to enable autoconf
scripts to run, but it does not provide a C compiler or a case-sensitive file system.
mingwPORTs are user contributed additions to the MinGW software collection. Rather than providing these "add-ons" as precompiled binary packages, they are supplied in the form of interactive Bourne shell
scripts, which guide the end user through the process of automatically downloading and patching original source code, then building and installing it. Users who wish to build any application from a mingwPORT must first install both MinGW and MSYS.
The implementation of Win32 header files and Win32 import libraries for run-time linking are released under a permissive license, while the GNU ports are provided under the GNU General Public License
. Binary downloads of both the complete MSYS package and individual MinGW GNU utilities are available from the MinGW site.
mingw-get is a tool which allows users to manage the installation of MinGW and MSYS software. This provides a more convenient way to update and install the libraries, compilers, and utilities in command-line.
layer that provides emulations of several system calls and libraries that exist on Linux, Unix, and the BSD variants. The POSIX
layer runs on top of Windows, sacrificing performance where necessary for compatibility. Accordingly, this approach requires Win32 programs written with Cygwin to run on top of a copyleft
ed compatibility library that must be distributed with the program, along with the program's source code. MinGW aims to provide native functionality and performance via direct Windows API calls. Unlike Cygwin, MinGW does not require a compatibility layer
DLL and thus programs do not need to be distributed with source code.
Because MinGW is dependent upon Win32 API calls, it cannot provide a full POSIX
API; it is unable to compile some Unix applications that can be compiled with Cygwin. Specifically, this applies to applications that require POSIX functionality like fork, mmap or ioctl and those that expect to be run in a POSIX environment. Applications written using a cross-platform library that has itself been ported to MinGW, such as SDL
, wxWidgets
, Qt
, or GTK+
will usually compile as easily in MinGW as they would in Cygwin.
The combination of MinGW and MSYS provides a small, self-contained environment that can be loaded onto removable media without leaving entries in the Registry
or files on the computer. Cygwin Portable provides a similar feature. By providing more functionality, Cygwin becomes more complicated to install and maintain.
It is also possible to cross-compile
Windows applications with MinGW-GCC under POSIX systems. This means that developers do not need a Windows installation with MSYS to compile software that will run on Windows without Cygwin.
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
of the GNU Compiler Collection
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
(GCC) and GNU Binutils for use in the development of native Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
applications; MinGW can function either as a cross compiler
Cross compiler
A cross compiler is a compiler capable of creating executable code for a platform other than the one on which the compiler is run. Cross compiler tools are used to generate executables for embedded system or multiple platforms. It is used to compile for a platform upon which it is not feasible to...
targeting Windows or as a native toolchain
Toolchain
In software, a toolchain is the set of programming tools that are used to create a product...
run on Windows itself. It is deployed along with a set of freely distributable import libraries and header files for the Windows API
Windows API
The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was formerly called the Win32 API; however, the name "Windows API" more accurately reflects its roots in 16-bit Windows and its support on...
.
History
MinGW was originally called mingw32; the numbers were dropped in order to avoid the implication that it would be limited to 32-bit systems. Colin Peters authored the initial release in 1998, consisting only of a CygwinCygwin
Cygwin is a Unix-like environment and command-line interface for Microsoft Windows. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications, data, and other system resources with applications, software tools, and data of the Unix-like environment...
port of GCC
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
. Jan-Jaap van der Heijden created a Windows-native port of GCC and added binutils and make. Mumit Khan later took over development, adding more Windows-specific features to the package, including the Win32 headers by Anders Norlander. In 2000, the project was moved to SourceForge.net
SourceForge.net
SourceForge is a web-based source code repository. It acts as a centralized location for software developers to control and manage open source software development. The website runs a version of SourceForge Enterprise Edition, forked from the last open-source version available...
in order to solicit more assistance from the community and centralize its development.
MinGW was selected as Project of the Month at SourceForge.net
SourceForge.net
SourceForge is a web-based source code repository. It acts as a centralized location for software developers to control and manage open source software development. The website runs a version of SourceForge Enterprise Edition, forked from the last open-source version available...
for September 2005.
Programming language support
For languages other than C, MinGW uses the GNU runtime librariesRuntime library
In computer programming, a runtime library is a special program library used by a compiler, to implement functions built into a programming language, during the execution of a computer program...
(for example, GNU libstdc++ for C++).
However, because GCC does not supply its own C runtime library, MinGW's C compiler targets Microsoft's old Visual C
Visual C++
Microsoft Visual C++ is a commercial , integrated development environment product from Microsoft for the C, C++, and C++/CLI programming languages...
runtime library, MSVCRT, which was released in 1998 and therefore does not include support for C99
C99
C99 is a modern dialect of the C programming language. It extends the previous version with new linguistic and library features, and helps implementations make better use of available computer hardware and compiler technology.-History:...
features (let alone all of C89
ANSI C
ANSI C refers to the family of successive standards published by the American National Standards Institute for the C programming language. Software developers writing in C are encouraged to conform to the standards, as doing so aids portability between compilers.-History and outlook:The first...
); while targeting MSVCRT yields programs that are as native as possible, the lack of support for C99 has caused porting problems, particularly where printf
Printf
Printf format string refers to a control parameter used by a class of functions typically associated with some types of programming languages. The format string specifies a method for rendering an arbitrary number of varied data type parameter into a string...
-style conversion specifiers are concerned. These issues have been partially mitigated by the implementation of a C99 compatibility library, libmingwex, but the extensive work required is far from complete and may never be fully realized.
Components of MinGW
The MinGW project maintains and distributes a number of different core components and supplementary packages, including various ports of GNU toolchainGNU toolchain
The GNU toolchain is a blanket term for a collection of programming tools produced by the GNU Project. These tools form a toolchain used for developing applications and operating systems....
, such as GCC
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
and binutils, translated into equivalent packages. These utilities can be used from the Windows command line or integrated into an IDE
Integrated development environment
An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...
.
MinGW supports libraries named according to the "
In addition, a component of MinGW known as MSYS (Minimal SYStem) provides win32 ports of a lightweight Unix-like shell environment including rxvt
Rxvt
rxvt is a terminal emulator for the X Window System , originally written by Rob Nation and later extensively modified by Mark Olesen, who took over maintenance for several years...
and a selection of POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
tools sufficient to enable autoconf
Autoconf
GNU Autoconf is a tool for producing configure scripts for building, installing and packaging software on computer systems where a Bourne shell is available....
scripts to run, but it does not provide a C compiler or a case-sensitive file system.
mingwPORTs are user contributed additions to the MinGW software collection. Rather than providing these "add-ons" as precompiled binary packages, they are supplied in the form of interactive Bourne shell
Bourne shell
The Bourne shell, or sh, was the default Unix shell of Unix Version 7 and most Unix-like systems continue to have /bin/sh - which will be the Bourne shell, or a symbolic link or hard link to a compatible shell - even when more modern shells are used by most users.Developed by Stephen Bourne at AT&T...
scripts, which guide the end user through the process of automatically downloading and patching original source code, then building and installing it. Users who wish to build any application from a mingwPORT must first install both MinGW and MSYS.
The implementation of Win32 header files and Win32 import libraries for run-time linking are released under a permissive license, while the GNU ports are provided under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
. Binary downloads of both the complete MSYS package and individual MinGW GNU utilities are available from the MinGW site.
mingw-get is a tool which allows users to manage the installation of MinGW and MSYS software. This provides a more convenient way to update and install the libraries, compilers, and utilities in command-line.
Comparison with Cygwin
MinGW forked from version 1.3.3 of Cygwin. Although both Cygwin and MinGW can be used to port Unix software to Windows, they have different approaches: Cygwin aims to provide a complete POSIXPOSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
layer that provides emulations of several system calls and libraries that exist on Linux, Unix, and the BSD variants. The POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
layer runs on top of Windows, sacrificing performance where necessary for compatibility. Accordingly, this approach requires Win32 programs written with Cygwin to run on top of a copyleft
Copyleft
Copyleft is a play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work...
ed compatibility library that must be distributed with the program, along with the program's source code. MinGW aims to provide native functionality and performance via direct Windows API calls. Unlike Cygwin, MinGW does not require a compatibility layer
Compatibility layer
A compatibility layer is a term that refers to components that allow for non-native support of components.In software engineering, a compatibility layer allows binaries for a legacy or foreign system to run on a host system. This translates system calls for the foreign system into native system...
DLL and thus programs do not need to be distributed with source code.
Because MinGW is dependent upon Win32 API calls, it cannot provide a full POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
API; it is unable to compile some Unix applications that can be compiled with Cygwin. Specifically, this applies to applications that require POSIX functionality like fork, mmap or ioctl and those that expect to be run in a POSIX environment. Applications written using a cross-platform library that has itself been ported to MinGW, such as SDL
Simple DirectMedia Layer
Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform, free and open source multimedia library written in C that presents a simple interface to various platforms' graphics, sound, and input devices....
, wxWidgets
WxWidgets
wxWidgets is a widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with minimal or no code changes...
, Qt
Qt (toolkit)
Qt is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface , and also used for developing non-GUI programs such as command-line tools and consoles for servers...
, or GTK+
GTK+
GTK+ is a cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the X Window System, along with Qt.The name GTK+ originates from GTK;...
will usually compile as easily in MinGW as they would in Cygwin.
The combination of MinGW and MSYS provides a small, self-contained environment that can be loaded onto removable media without leaving entries in the Registry
Windows registry
The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores configuration settings and options on Microsoft Windows operating systems. It contains settings for low-level operating system components as well as the applications running on the platform: the kernel, device drivers, services, SAM, user...
or files on the computer. Cygwin Portable provides a similar feature. By providing more functionality, Cygwin becomes more complicated to install and maintain.
It is also possible to cross-compile
Cross compiler
A cross compiler is a compiler capable of creating executable code for a platform other than the one on which the compiler is run. Cross compiler tools are used to generate executables for embedded system or multiple platforms. It is used to compile for a platform upon which it is not feasible to...
Windows applications with MinGW-GCC under POSIX systems. This means that developers do not need a Windows installation with MSYS to compile software that will run on Windows without Cygwin.
See also
- CygwinCygwinCygwin is a Unix-like environment and command-line interface for Microsoft Windows. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications, data, and other system resources with applications, software tools, and data of the Unix-like environment...
- UnxUtilsUnxUtilsUnxUtils is a collection of ports of common GNU Unix-like utilities to native Win32, with executables only depending on the Microsoft C-runtime msvcrt.dll. The collection was last updated externally on April 15, 2003 by Dr. . The most recent release package is now available as an open-source...
- DJGPPDJGPPDJGPP is a development suite for 386+ IBM PC compatibles which supports DOS-enabled operating systems. It is guided by DJ Delorie, who began the project in 1989. It is a port of the popular GCC compiler, as well as mostly GNU utilities such as bash, find, tar, ls, awk, sed, and ld to DPMI...
- Microsoft Services for UNIX-based Applications (SUA, formerly Interix)InterixInterix is the name of an optional, full-featured POSIX and Unix environment subsystem for Microsoft's Windows NT-based operating systems.Interix is a component of the Services for Unix release 3.0 and 3.5...
- TinyCC: lightweight cross-compilers for Linux, Windows, ARM and C67
External links
- MinGW Official website
- MinGW-w64 - GCC for Win64
- Unofficial TDM-MinGW GCC 4.6.1 builds
- MinGW GCC 4.6.x-4.7.x builds
- TakeoffGW - GNU/Windows distribution with package manager includes MinGW GCC 4.4, MSYS
- Prebuilt MinGW package with the boost libraries already built with an installer
- MinGW GCC and MSYS tools installer (includes C, C++ and Objective-C compilers)