Re: [Vala] How to: Cross Compile Vala to Win32/64

[Thomas Jollans <t jollybox de>]

On 10/20/2012 09:33 PM, bsquared wrote:
> Hello,
>
> It's been a while since I have looked at Vala.  I am preparing to write
> a simple app that I would like to make available for Linux and Windows.
>
> I am having trouble finding documentation to cross-compile an app
> written in Vala to Windows binary.  I want to code the project in Anjuta
> and compile both Linux and Windows versions from this code base using
> Linux mingw tools.

The fact that you're using Vala shouldn't make much of a difference. If
you're using a build system that is capable of cross-compiling C code
with GCC and compiles Vala to C instead of using a short-cut, then you
should be able to follow the documentation for cross-compiling with your
chosen build system.

If you're using Anjuta, you should have some IDE support for
autoconf/automake, and these build tools, while notoriously unintuitive,
are extremely powerful, quite well documented, and have as good support
for cross compiling as you're likely to get. I expect that any
documentation of cross-compiling to windows using automake will apply to
a Vala project that uses automake's built in Vala support.


Cross compiling will still be a pain in the ass, of course. Also, if you
ask me, you shouldn't rely on wine for testing, but rather get a copy of
Windows to run in a VM (or, ideally, on actual hardware), or just don't
release Windows binaries in the first place.

Thomas Jollans

> I do not actually have a Windows based machine available.  I will do
> testing in Wine with gtk+2.24 runtime enviroment for Windows.
>
> Can someone point me in the right direction to get started on this?
>
> Thank you.