[bind10-dev] WIN32 port

[Francis Dupont]

> On Wed, 5 Sep 2012, Francis Dupont wrote:
> 
> > => as usual the real choice is between a little time now or a bigger 
> > time later. BTW if the test machine is ready we can talk about to add 
> > a WIN32 build & check on it. I am reading to help (with a new Subject 
> > line?), needed things are:
> >  - Windows 7 license (home edition is enough but please go to 64 bits)
> >  - Visual Studio C++ (I use the free Express version but if we want to
> >   build bind9 too a paying (i.e., expensive) version is required.
> >   The VS shell stuff is included in paying versions too so IMHO it is
> >   better to install more than Express)
> > >>From these and an (admin) account on the VM I can finish.
> 
> I am working on this with OPS.  I will let you know as we get closer.
> 
> Will it have a POSIX shell environment? (Sorry I don't know Windows well 
> or Visual Studio.)

=> yes, in fact cygwin is required (there is a sed in one build file)
and for instance all the check scripts are cygwin bash scripts (:-).
There are only a few .bat (cmd.exe batch scripts) for setting the
environment from a command window and the bind10 one (which
fails correctly to load not yet ported python tools), just to make
people be sure the built stuff is full Windows, i.e., can be run
(vs. be built) without cygwin.

> If it can run my portable shell scripts plus git and 
> scp and curl/wget (or similar) to fetch data to work with existing 
> automated build system that would be great.

=> you'll have them.

> But how are the build (make) rules generated?

=> it is Windows: no make!

> I am guessing we will not use autoconf/automake suite on Windows
> ... or are we?

=> you guess right: there is a stack of Visual Studio project files
(and >70 different projects). Usually the VS GUI/IDE is used but
there is a batch (aka command line) tool 'MSBuild' which makes this
phase "scriptable".

Thanks

Francis Dupont <fdupont at isc.org>