Subject: Re: bug#25914: Bug #25914: Please document compilation of Windows Resource files

From: Simon McVittie <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2017 18:22:22 +0100

On Tue, 10 Oct 2017 at 11:32:25 -0500, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Oct 2017, Simon McVittie wrote:
> > 
> > After invoking LT_LANG([Windows Resource]) in configure.ac, is the
> > Automake-generated build system meant to support compiling .rc files to
> > .lo and/or .o? I would expect that it should, but perhaps that expectation
> > is wrong?
> 
> What causes you to believe that there is support for a 'Windows Resource'
> language or specific support for Windows resource files?

`info libtool "Tags"` describes them as a language that libtool supports
for the LT_LANG macro, alongside (in the version I'm using) C, C++,
Java, Fortran and Go. LT_LANG([Windows Resource]) does check for a
resource compiler named i686-w64-mingw32-windres or similar, and puts
it in the output variable RC; it's the intended steps after that that
are less clear.

> The good news is that specific support is not required since it is easy to
> add additional tests to configure scripts and additional rules to Automake
> makefiles.

The bug that I'm replying to (#25914) is a libtool enhancement request
asking for the way this is meant to work to be documented (including
whether it is meant to involve adding additional rules, and if so, what
those rules should typically be).

I am not a Windows developer (although I co-maintain dbus, which is
portable to Windows) so unfortunately I don't have a correct answer for
that, only anecdotal evidence based on what did and didn't work in dbus.

    smcv