Instant MinGW Starter

By Ilya Shpigor

Get to grips with a new technology, understand what it is and what it can do for you, and then get to work with the most important features and tasks. This is a Starter guide designed to enable the reader to start using MinGW to develop Microsoft Windows applications as quickly, and as efficiently, as possible. This book is for C and C++ developers who are looking for new and effective instruments to use in application development for Microsoft Windows. No experience of MinGW is needed: this book will guide you through the essentials to get you using the software like a pro in a matter of hours.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Release date: Jan 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781849695633

Book preview

Table of Contents

Instant MinGW Starter

Credits

Foreword

About the Author

About the Reviewer

www.packtpub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

packtLib.packtpub.com

Free Access for Packt account holders

1. Instant MinGW Starter

So, what is MinGW?

Installation

Step 1 – What do I need?

Step 2 – Downloading MinGW

Step 3 – Extracting and configuring

What do you have to get?

Alternative ways to install MinGW

Quick start – Creating your first MinGW project

Step 1 – Adding source files

Step 2 – Adding a Makefile

Step 3 – Compiling and linking

Top features you'll want to know about

1 – Make utility usage

2 – Compiler options

3 – Importing the existing Visual C++ project

4 – Debugging application

5 – Profiling application

6 – Developing with cross-platform libraries

The Qt framework

The Gtk+ widget toolkit

wxWidgets framework

7 – Integrating with IDE

Code::Blocks

Qt Creator

Eclipse

People and places you should get to know

MinGW official sites

MinGW-w64 official sites

GNU Compiler Collection official sites

GNU Debugger official sites

GNU Make official sites

Articles and tutorials

Community

Twitter

Instant MinGW Starter

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Instant MinGW Starter

Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: January 2013

Production Reference: 1210113

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-84969-562-6

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Ilya Shpigor

Reviewer

Kyle Schwarz

Acquisition Editor

Edward Gordon

Commissioning Editor

Maria D'souza

Technical Editor

Ankita Meshram

Project Coordinator

Amigya Khurana

Proofreader

Maria Gould

Production Coordinator

Prachali Bhiwandkar

Cover Work

Prachali Bhiwandkar

Cover Image

Conidon Miranda

Foreword

Yoda's aphorism (There is no 'try') sounds neat, but it doesn't work for me. I have done most of my work while anxious about whether I could do the job, and ensure that it would be enough to achieve the goal if I did. But I tried anyway, because there was no one but me between the enemy and my city. Surprising myself, I have sometimes succeeded.

Richard Matthew Stallman,

Launcher of the GNU Project and founder of the Free Software Foundation

Sometimes it seems that the world is limited to just the Microsoft Windows operating system and that the developing of complex applications is impossible without the latest version of MS Visual Studio. But there are open houses where there is no need to look at the sky through the windows. There are a lot of development environments that are different from commonly used ones, and this variety allows us to feel the world of the software in its entirety.

PCs are losing their significance increasingly and are yielding the personal computing device's role to tablet computers and smartphones. The world does not consist of only one hardware architecture nowadays. The different CPU architectures and operating systems for supporting them are available now. The ability to develop cross-platform applications is important too.

Many software development tools have been created as a part of the GNU Project since 1984 when the project started. The GNU compiler collection is a part of these software development tools.

Minimalist GNU for Windows (MinGW) is a software port of the GNU Toolchain for Microsoft Windows operating system. Its minimalism means that MinGW doesn't provide the whole POSIX compatible environment. In the meantime it doesn't yield to its ancestor for Unix-based systems but allows you to feel Unix philosophy.

MinGW allows open source software developers to port their software to the Windows operating system. MinGW software with any of the well-known cross-platform framework integration allows you to develop cross-platform applications even if you don't care about this feature. This feature provides a great competitive advantage if your customer decides to change his or her computing platform to another suddenly. You don't need a special Linux version or additional developer team in this case. Just make minor changes in your software and that's all you need.

The MinGW software allows you to use plenty of open source C and C++ libraries that integrate with MinGW well. You can develop applications with more features and reuse source code thanks to these libraries. Often open source libraries' licenses allow you to choose if your application will be a free software or a proprietary one.

The world of command-line interface, Makefiles, and build systems can be very enthralling like other new