Thread: Build with Visual Studio & MSVC

---

From: pgsql-hackers-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-hackers-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Chuck McDevitt
Sent: 09 September 2005 19:38
To: pgsql-hackers-win32@postgresql.org
Cc: PostgreSQL-development
Subject: [HACKERS] Build with Visual Studio & MSVC

Just for fun, I went through PostgreSQL 8.1 and did a complete build using Microsoft’s C and the latest Visual Studio.

With a few minor tweaks, everything compiled with no errors.

 

My assumption is that because PostgreSQL is a UNIX/Linux-centric project (and gcc/gdb centric), this really isn’t of much interest to anyone.

So other than this e-mail, I don’t plan to do anything with this except for my own amusement.

 

If I’m wrong, and there is some real interest in supporting MSVC, let me know, and I’ll put some work into cleaning it up and making patches out of it, etc. 

 

Hi Chuck,

We discussed this again on list only the other day in fact! Basically we're not particulalry interested in supporting VS prject files in place of gmake/autoconf, purely because they will undoubtedly cause maintenance headaches as the majority of our developers don't have Windows boxes, let alone a copy of Visual Studio.

However, if you need something to keep yourself amused (unless I can persuade you to come help out with psqlODBC :-) ), we would be interested in patches that allow us to use Microsoft's compiler as an alternative to gcc.

It's interesting to know it built fairly easily though...

Regards, Dave.

> However, if you need something to keep yourself amused (unless I can
> persuade you to come help out with psqlODBC :-) ), we would be
> interested in patches that allow us to use Microsoft's compiler as an
> alternative to gcc.
>
>
>
> It's interesting to know it built fairly easily though...

What would be of interest to me, would be to know if there is an actual
gain to compiling with the Microsoft compiler. I understand the
maintenance issues but if the Microsoft compiler gives us 25% better
performance on Win32 then Mingw...

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake



>
>
>
> Regards, Dave.
>
>
>
>
>


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Dave Page wrote:

>
>     Just for fun, I went through PostgreSQL 8.1 and did a complete
>     build using Microsoft’s C and the latest Visual Studio.
>
>     With a few minor tweaks, everything compiled with no errors.
>
>     My assumption is that because PostgreSQL is a UNIX/Linux-centric
>     project (and gcc/gdb centric), this really isn’t of much interest
>     to anyone.
>
>     So other than this e-mail, I don’t plan to do anything with this
>     except for my own amusement.
>
>     If I’m wrong, and there is some real interest in supporting MSVC,
>     let me know, and I’ll put some work into cleaning it up and making
>     patches out of it, etc.
>
> Hi Chuck,
>
> We discussed this again on list only the other day in fact! Basically
> we're not particulalry interested in supporting VS prject files in
> place of gmake/autoconf, purely because they will undoubtedly cause
> maintenance headaches as the majority of our developers don't have
> Windows boxes, let alone a copy of Visual Studio.
>
> However, if you need something to keep yourself amused (unless I can
> persuade you to come help out with psqlODBC :-) ), we would be
> interested in patches that allow us to use Microsoft's compiler as an
> alternative to gcc.
>
> It's interesting to know it built fairly easily though...
>


There is also a pgfoundry project for maintaining Visual Studio project
files. see http://pgfoundry.org/projects/vcproject/


cheers

andrew

Hi all,

A remark linked to the preceding discussion:

Even if I could find some interest in compiling postgresql with Microsoft’s C
compiler, I understand the technical and organizational difficulties implied by
such a feature. If I want to rebuild from sources postgresql, I have to go the
developers way, here use the mingw toolchain.

I think that writing _extensions_ for postgresql is another story.

Even before version 8.0, the binary win32/cygwin distribution contained
precompiled libraries for client side programming with VisualC. This allows you
to write postgresql client code in VC _and_ without rebuilding postgresql yourself.

Something similar (I think it has been discussed earlier but don’t remember the
decisions) should exist for writing UDFs (stored procedures, the main reason for
our use of postgresql compared to commercial databases where this feature is
generally badly documented, to say the least). It would be nice if this was
possible _without_ rebuilding postgresql from sources. This would imply that the
binary native win32 distribution of postgresql contains (or that a supplementary
package exists) the libraries (and headers) that are necessary. Having these
libraries in mingw format would be nice, having them for VC++ would probably be
very helpful to some of us.

Jean-Marc


Dave Page wrote:
>
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *From:* pgsql-hackers-owner@postgresql.org
>     [mailto:pgsql-hackers-owner@postgresql.org] *On Behalf Of *Chuck
>     McDevitt
>     *Sent:* 09 September 2005 19:38
>     *To:* pgsql-hackers-win32@postgresql.org
>     *Cc:* PostgreSQL-development
>     *Subject:* [HACKERS] Build with Visual Studio & MSVC
>
>     Just for fun, I went through PostgreSQL 8.1 and did a complete build
>     using Microsoft’s C and the latest Visual Studio.
>
>     With a few minor tweaks, everything compiled with no errors.
>
>
>
>     My assumption is that because PostgreSQL is a UNIX/Linux-centric
>     project (and gcc/gdb centric), this really isn’t of much interest to
>     anyone.
>
>     So other than this e-mail, I don’t plan to do anything with this
>     except for my own amusement.
>
>
>
>     If I’m wrong, and there is some real interest in supporting MSVC,
>     let me know, and I’ll put some work into cleaning it up and making
>     patches out of it, etc.
>
>
>
> Hi Chuck,
>
>
>
> We discussed this again on list only the other day in fact! Basically
> we're not particulalry interested in supporting VS prject files in place
> of gmake/autoconf, purely because they will undoubtedly cause
> maintenance headaches as the majority of our developers don't have
> Windows boxes, let alone a copy of Visual Studio.
>
>
>
> However, if you need something to keep yourself amused (unless I can
> persuade you to come help out with psqlODBC :-) ), we would be
> interested in patches that allow us to use Microsoft's compiler as an
> alternative to gcc.
>
>
>
> It's interesting to know it built fairly easily though...
>
>
>
> Regards, Dave.
>
>
>
>
>