One of my upcoming patches is going to be a bit controversial (or maybe
I'm just missing something). In either case, I'm going to go ahead and
start the discussion early.
First a bit of vocabulary. I'm not including this because I think
people here don't know these terms. It's because *I* am probably using
them wrong. But by defining how I am using them, hopefully you will at
least understand what I am trying to convey.
* SourceDir - The directory that contains the git repository of all
the mingw-w64 source files
* BuildDir - The directory into which you will be building the output
of the files in the SourceDir.
* OutputDir - The directory into which the useful output files
(libraries, headers, etc) will be installed when running "make
install". Its location can be specified by using --prefix on the
configure command.
* BinutilsDir - A loose term that encompasses the system build
utilities (gcc, clang, etc) and their support files (includes, libs,
etc).
With that in mind, here's my question: When I am building mingw-w64,
which of these directories should the compiler be searching for include
files, and in which order?
In my view, the correct answer (in order) is SourceDir, BuildDir, and
BinutilsDir. OutputDir should not be searched at all.
However, that does not appear to be what is happening. The correct
SourceDirs and BuildDirs frequently aren't searched at all, and
OutputDir is. As a result, the Mingw-w64 headers you are modifying
while working on the project aren't used during the build (IOW you end
up using old copies) unless you explicitly copy them around before
running make. While this is a hassle for people maintaining mingw-w64,
it's got to be worse for users who "grab the latest" and don't
understand what's required to build it.
This just seems wrong. I believe that when building mingw-w64, the
default should be to use the mingw-64 headers first (since that's where
the newest files will be), then BuildDir (think: generated _mingw.h),
then BinutilsDir (for things like ia32intrin.h, etc). OutputDir should
not be used at all, since it is (at best) a copy of a previous (ie
out-of-date) build.
I have a patch for makefile.am that makes things "better" (ie adding the
appropriate -I where needed), but I assume there's more to this issue
than I currently understand. Since it will probably take several emails
for even the best teachers to fix my misunderstanding here, I'm starting
the discussion before sending the patch.
Be gentle...
dw
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