On 11/26/2018 10:06 AM, Earnie via Mingw-w64-public wrote:
On 11/24/2018 5:27 PM, Edward Diener wrote:
On 11/24/2018 5:18 PM, Earnie via Mingw-w64-public wrote:
On 11/24/2018 3:17 PM, Edward Diener wrote:
Is there anywhere a description of the files in a mingw-w64
distribution, with perhaps an explanation of whether any given file
is used at compile, link, run-time, and/or for some other purpose ?
What exactly are you trying to determine? If a file is used at
runtime it will be in {usr,mingw32,mingw64}/bin directory. If a file
is required for the build process you will find it in
{usr,mingw32,mingw64}/lib and perhaps under
{usr,mingw32,mingw64}/{i686,x86_64}-{pc,w64}-{msys,mingw32}/*
directories.
Yet there are many more directories in any given mingw-w64
distribution I have installed using the mingw-w64-install.exe program.
What is the purpose of those other files if they are not being used at
either compile, link, or run-time ? In other words why would a binary
distribution of mingw-w64 have files that the end-user will never use ?
Since you don't mention a list of those I cannot help you. If you wish
to be more specific maybe we can answer your query.
I was intending to be general. I just find it to be poor documentation
that the purposes of the files in a mingw-w64 distribution are not
listed/explained anywhere to the end-user. I know it is free software,
and documenting things which the programmers of free software do not
think are necessary to do so is just extra work to them, but I work with
free software also ( Boost C++ ) and usually a Boost library will
explain all the files that are publicly for use and will also mention
that in so-and-so directory are files that are used in the private
implementation of the library. A Boost library usually does not
distribute files to the end-user which has no use for the end-user when
they want to use the library to compile/link/run code. I do not know if
that is the same with mingw-w64, but since there is no documentation
outside of the use of maybe a few files concerned with compiling/linking
a library or program, I do not know if the majority of the files in the
distro are actually being used by the end-user or the documented
commands, or what those files are about. I think that mingw-w64 should
document this. I understand that it "just works", but I think that
programmers would like to know more than that about mingw-w64.
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