Re: Problem building ezcaIDL on Windows

["Johnson, Andrew N. via Core-talk" <core-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Hi Mark,

On Jun 11, 2021, at 11:57 AM, Mark Rivers via Core-talk <core-talk at aps.anl.gov> wrote:

My problem is now completely solved.  The solution is not to build with the windows-x64 architecture, in spite of the fact the ezcaIDL is building a DLL.  One needs to use the windows-x64-static architecture, but specify SHARED_LIBRARIES=YES in the Makefile.  The resulting DLL is completely self-contained, no dependency on base, ezca, or EzscaScan.

You may be able to modify the Makefiles to have them build a LOADABLE_LIBRARY instead of a SHARED_LIBRARY since that’s what’s needed; on Windows that should still create a DLL even when SHARED_LIBRARIES=NO. That target type may not have existed in 2007 when the Makefile was last worked on.

I am going to make pull requests for ezca, EzcaScan, and ezcaIDL.  Their Makefiles date from before when there were separate Windows architectures for dynamic builds (windows-x64) and static builds (windows-x64-static).  The .def files are no longer needed, and I will fix compiler warnings.

There was a PR against ezca recently to convert it to build stand-alone instead of in an extensions tree, but the branch still needs a few modifications IMO and those three modules should probably all be converted together if it’s going to happen. Nobody is really managing the ezca extensions modules any more – I converted their CVS history to Git several years ago, but I don’t have any customers that I know of so have no incentive to do anything with them myself. Not sure whether BCDA are still building these or not.

- Andrew

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