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Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 08:19:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: km4hr <km4hr AT netscape DOT net>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: RE: How to link with third party libraries using gcc
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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!)




Dave Korn wrote:
> 
> On 28 June 2007 19:53, km4hr wrote:
> 
>> Well, I think I'm about at the end of my road. My purpose for trying
>> cygwin
>> was to see if it could insulate me from having to learn to program on
>> Windows. But if I've got to go to MSNBC (or whatever) or google the
>> internet
>> to figure out the internals of Windows then that defeats my purpose.  I'm
>> too close to the end of my career for that. I have no interest in Windows
>> anyway.
>> 
>> I am amazed at what the Cygwin programmers have accomplished. They're
>> obviously very capable programmers. But if I have to learn Windows to use
>> cygwin then what's the use?  I might as well just learn the Windows
>> programming tools. They're easy to use, or so I'm told.
> 
>   You have a fundamental misunderstanding here.
> 
>   You don't need to learn windows.  You can take bog-standard *nix/posix
> packages, compile link and run them using gcc, with no problems.
> 
>   However, what you're trying to do here is combine cygwin code and
> non-cygwin
> code into one program.  That is incredibly hard, and it's not cygwin's
> fault;
> you're doing the same as if you were compiling a program on a linux box
> and
> you decided to try and link in a windows dll and get some of the functions
> from it to work.  It's very very difficult to mix these incompatible
> things
> together, and requires deep knowledge of the platform, the toolchain, and
> how
> they interact.  It's not brain science, but it /is/ rocket surgery.
> 
>   In other words, you're going at this the wrong way.  If you just treat
> cygwin as a Unix environment and use it like that, it'd work exactly how
> you
> expect without any of this complication.
> 
>   What exactly are these libraries, what is the product that they're part
> of,
> and what is the /actual/ goal you're trying to get your program to
> achieve?
> 
> 
>     cheers,
>       DaveK
> -- 
> Can't think of a witty .sigline today....
> 
> 
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