Building dll's with Bakefile

sethjackson · Post by **sethjackson** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:44 am

Hey I recently started using Bakefile as my build system, and so far it works well.

However, I ran into a problem trying to build dll's with it.
For some reason import libraries aren't generated, even though the linker is told to make them.

So now my executable fails to build because the import library can't be found.

Does anyone know how to fix this?
Maybe I need to set some option in my Bakefile?

I'm using Bakefile 0.2.3, with MSVC 9, on Windows Vista.

Thanks!

Post by **tan** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:54 am

Hi,

sethjackson wrote:Hey I recently started using Bakefile as my build system, and so far it works well.

However, I ran into a problem trying to build dll's with it.
For some reason import libraries aren't generated, even though the linker is told to make them.

do you mean the dlls were built successfully but without import libs?
I know just one reason for that. You don't have anything to export from it

Try run dumpbin utility with switch /EXPORTS.
Here is a sample:

Code: Select all

dumpbin /EXPORTS wxChartDll.dll

Microsoft (R) COFF/PE Dumper Version 7.10.3077
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.


Dump of file wxChartDll.dll

File Type: DLL

  Section contains the following exports for wxChartDll.dll

    00000000 characteristics
    47963840 time date stamp Tue Jan 22 21:38:56 2008
        0.00 version
           1 ordinal base
         877 number of functions
         877 number of names

    ordinal hint RVA      name
         
          1    0 00012AB0 [email protected]@[email protected]@@Z
          2    1 00012990 [email protected]@[email protected]@Z
          3    2 00012A20 [email protected]@[email protected]@Z
          4    3 000146B0 [email protected]@[email protected]@@Z
          5    4 00014670 [email protected]@[email protected]@Z
          6    5 00023D30 [email protected]@[email protected]@@Z

Can you see any exported symbols?

To export any symbol from dll (for MSVC) you have to use __declspec(dllexport) attribute:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... S.80).aspx

sethjackson · Post by **sethjackson** » Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:49 pm

Yeah I don't get anything with dumpbin.

So I have to write __declspec( dllexport )?

Yuck (and non-portable)!

Anyway to use DLL's with MSVC 9 without this (maybe without import libs)?

I really don't want to use static libs....
I never had to do anything like this with GCC (MinGW).
So what gives?

Post by **tan** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 7:43 am

sethjackson wrote:Yeah I don't get anything with dumpbin.

So I have to write __declspec( dllexport )?

Yuck (and non-portable)!

You have to use #ifdefined statement

Have a look into file WX_ROOT/include/wx/dlimpexp.h for examples.

sethjackson wrote: Anyway to use DLL's with MSVC 8 without this (maybe without import libs)?

There is another way

That is module-definition (.def) files:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... s.71).aspx

sethjackson · Post by **sethjackson** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 7:03 pm

Ok. I guess there is no way to just tell the compiler to export everything (export for you) without writing __declspec?

BTW I should have said I was using MSVC 9 not 8... Sorry.

Post by **tan** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 8:41 pm

sethjackson wrote:Ok. I guess there is no way to just tell the compiler to export everything (export for you) without writing __declspec?

You are right, there isn't. BTW, wx itself heavy uses it so that is "native" way for wx users

You can use special wx macros (defined in dlimpexp.h) WXIMPORT and WXEXPORT (and many others), with them you don't need widely use #ifdef blabla... in your code.

sethjackson · Post by **sethjackson** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 6:18 pm

Ok. Thanks!

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