RE: How to link with third party libraries using gcc

["Bob McConnell" <rvm at CBORD dot com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com 
> [mailto:cygwin-owner@cygwin.com] On Behalf Of km4hr
> Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 11:19 AM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: RE: How to link with third party libraries using gcc
> 
> 
> Dave,
> 
> The libraries I'm dealing with provide an C programming 
> interface to an
> industrial control system. The system is a Fisher  DCS 
> (distributed control
> system).  The DCS contains thousands of temperatures, 
> pressures, flowrates,
> etc from processes in our plant. I create programs that access that
> information. My programs analyze the info to evaluate production
> efficiencies, reporting, performance testing, etc.  The 
> Fisher libraries are
> available on Unix,VMS, and Windows. I use the Unix version. 
> But there are
> times when it would be convenient to run the programs on 
> Windows.  I just
> don't want to learn the Windows programming environment. So I was
> experimenting with cygwin to see if there might be some magic 
> that could
> allow the transfer of programs from Unix to Windows easily. 
> 
> I wish there was a Linux version of the Fisher libraries. But 
> the product
> now has "legacy" status and Fisher has no intention of 
> creating a Linux
> version. Fisher became convinced a few years ago that Windows 
> was the "way
> of the future". So much so that they based their entire new 
> product line on
> it. They thought Unix was dead. Now with Linux becoming ever 
> more popular
> the folks at Fisher are paranoid. They don't want to hear the 
> word Linux.
> (If anyone has any idea how to reverse engineer such a 
> library I'd love to
> hear about it!)

Whether the libraries are linked dynamic or static is irrelevant here.
The Windows libraries are stored in a different object format than the
Unix and Cygwin libraries, and probably have different calling
conventions. You can't use MS-Windows libraries without the appropriate
tools, usually that means Visual Studio. Cygwin made no attempt to be
compatible at that level, likely because both the API and calling
conventions are so different.

Have you tried to use them under wine or don't you have a full
MS-Windows application built?

Bob McConnell
N2SPP

--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/