Tcl 8.6 for Windows 1. Introduction --------------- This is the directory where you configure and compile the Windows version of Tcl. This directory also contains source files for Tcl that are specific to Microsoft Windows. The information in this file is maintained on the web at: http://www.tcl.tk/doc/howto/compile.html#win 2. Compiling Tcl ---------------- In order to compile Tcl for Windows, you need the following: Tcl 8.6 Source Distribution (plus any patches) and Visual C++ 6 or newer or Linux + MinGW-w64 (any distribution e.g. Ubuntu) (for either 32-bit or 64-bit executables) or Cygwin + MinGW-w64 [http://cygwin.com/install.html] (for either 32-bit or 64-bit executables) or Darwin + MinGW-w64 [http://mingw-w64.sourceforge.net/] (for either 32-bit or 64-bit executables) or Msys + MinGW-w64 [http://mingw-w64.sourceforge.net/] (for either 32-bit or 64-bit executables) or Msys + Mingw [http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml] (32-bit executables only) In practice, this release is built with Visual C++ 6.0 and the TEA Makefile. If you are building with Visual C++, in the "win" subdirectory of the source release, you will find "makefile.vc". This is the makefile for the Visual C++ compiler and uses the stock NMAKE tool. Detailed directions for using it, are in the comments of "makefile.vc". A quick example would be: C:\tcl_source\win\>nmake -f makefile.vc There is also a Developer Studio workspace and project file, too, if you would like to use them. If you are building with Linux, Cygwin or Msys, you can use the configure script that lives in the win subdirectory. The Linux/Cygwin/Msys based configure/build process works just like the UNIX one, so you will want to refer to ../unix/README for available configure options. If you want 64-bit executables (x86_64), you need to configure using the --enable-64bit option. Then make sure that the x86_64-w64-mingw32 compiler is present. For Cygwin this compiler can be found in the "mingw64-x86_64-gcc-core" package, which can be installed through the normal Cygwin install process. If you only want 32-bit executables, the "mingw64-i686-gcc-core" package is what you need. If your Linux distribution does not have a MinGW-w64 package, you can download one from [https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/] Use the Makefile "install" target to install Tcl. It will install it according to the prefix options you provided in the correct directory structure. Note that in order to run tclsh86.exe, you must ensure that tcl86.dll is on your path, in the system directory, or in the directory containing tclsh86.exe. Note: Tcl no longer provides support for Win32s. 3. Test suite ------------- This distribution contains an extensive test suite for Tcl. Some of the tests are timing dependent and will fail from time to time. If a test is failing consistently, please send us a bug report with as much detail as you can manage. Please use the online database at http://tcl.sourceforge.net/ In order to run the test suite, you build the "test" target using the appropriate makefile for your compiler.