8 This is the directory where you configure and compile the Windows
9 version of Tcl. This directory also contains source files for Tcl
10 that are specific to Microsoft Windows.
12 The information in this file is maintained on the web at:
13 http://www.tcl.tk/doc/howto/compile.html#win
15 The above URL includes a lengthy discussion of compiler macros necessary
16 when compiling Tcl extensions that will be dynamically loaded.
21 In order to compile Tcl for Windows, you need the following:
23 Tcl 8.4 Source Distribution (plus any patches)
33 http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tcl/msys_mingw2.zip
35 This Msys + Mingw download is the minimal environment
36 needed to build Tcl/Tk under Windows. It includes a
37 shell environment and gcc. The release is designed to
38 make it as easy a possible to build Tcl/Tk. To install,
39 you just download the zip file and extract the files
40 into a directory. The README.TXT file describes how
41 to launch the msys shell, you then run the configure
42 script in the tcl/win directory.
46 Cygwin 1.1 or newer (See http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin)
48 Mingw 1.1 (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mingw/MinGW-1.1.tar.gz)
50 Extract the contents of the archive file into /usr/local/mingw
51 and place /usr/local/mingw/bin at the front of your PATH env var
52 before running the configure script in the tcl/win directory.
55 In practice, this release is built with Visual C++ 6.0 and the TEA
58 If you are building with Visual C++, in the "win" subdirectory of the
59 source release, you will find "makefile.vc". This is the makefile for
60 the Visual C++ compiler and uses the stock NMAKE tool. Detailed
61 directions for using it, are in the comments of "makefile.vc". A quick
63 C:\tcl_source\win\>nmake -f makefile.vc
65 There is also a Developer Studio workspace and project file, too, if you
66 would like to use them.
68 If you are building with Msys or Cygwin, you can use the configure script
69 that lives in the win subdirectory. The Msys or Cygwin based configure/build
70 process works just like the UNIX one, so you will want to refer to
71 ../unix/README for available configure options. An error will be
72 generated by the configure script if you try to compile Tcl with
73 the Cygwin version of gcc instead of the Mingw version. Check your
74 PATH if you get this error. Be aware that gcc will generate
75 lots of compile time warnings when building Tcl. Warnings are
76 not errors, so please don't file a bug report about them.
78 In order to use the binaries generated by these makefiles, you will
79 need to place the Tcl script library files someplace where Tcl can
80 find them. Tcl looks in one of following places for the library files:
82 1) The path specified in the environment variable "TCL_LIBRARY".
84 2) Relative to the directory containing the current .exe.
85 Tcl will look for a directory "..\lib\tcl8.4" relative to the
86 directory containing the currently running .exe.
88 Note that in order to run tclsh84.exe, you must ensure that tcl84.dll
89 and tclpip84.dll are on your path, in the system directory, or in the
90 directory containing tclsh84.exe.
92 Note: Tcl no longer provides support for Win32s.
97 This distribution contains an extensive test suite for Tcl. Some of
98 the tests are timing dependent and will fail from time to time. If a
99 test is failing consistently, please send us a bug report with as much
100 detail as you can manage. Please use the online database at
101 http://tcl.sourceforge.net/
103 In order to run the test suite, you build the "test" target using the
104 appropriate makefile for your compiler.