
                    PostgreSQL Native Win32 FAQ Using MinGW
                                       
   Last updated: Fri Oct 8 12:47:37 EDT 2004
   
   Current maintainer: Bruce Momjian (pgman@candle.pha.pa.us)
   
   The most recent version of this document can be viewed at
   http://momjian.postgresql.org/main/writings/pgsql/project/win32.html.
   
   The native Win32 port is built from source using MinGW tools.  There
   is also a precompiled binary installer called pginstaller which you
   can download from http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller.  It is a
   fully native build and uses no additional software like MinGW.
   
Tools for Building Binaries

   The native Win32 port requires a 32-bit NT-based Microsoft operating
   system, like Windows NT 4, Windows 2000/2003, or Windows XP. (NT 4
   doesn't support tablespaces because it doesn't support the junction
   points needed for symlinks.)  Earlier operating systems do not have
   sufficient infrastructure. Building the port also requires MinGW and
   Msys, which can be downloaded from http://www.mingw.org/. MinGW is a
   Unix-like build environment for Microsoft operating systems. Msys is a
   collection of unix tools required to run shell scripts like
   configure.  Neither is required to run the resulting binaries;  they
   are needed only for creating the binaries.  We have no intention of
   supporting Visual C; their build environment is just too different
   from Unix, and maintenance of such a build environment would be too
   burdensome.
   
Steps For Building Binaries

     * Download the nightly snapshot tarball from
       ftp://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/dev or checkout via CVS (you will
       need bison, flex, and perl installed to build from CVS)
     * Run configure (you might need to add the --without-zlib argument,
       depending on whether you have installed zlib on MinGW)
     * Run make install
       
   Note:  it is suggested that you run psql under CMD.EXE., as the Msys
   console has buffering issues.
   If you make a change that you want to contribute, make a context diff
   and send it to the mailing list.
   
Access

   The mailing list for discussion is pgsql-hackers-win32@postgresql.org.
   You can subscribe by sending an email body containing the word
   subscribe to pgsql-hackers-win32-request@postgresql.org.
   
Resources

   There are several resources that helped us complete this port:
     * PeerDirect port of PostgreSQL 7.2 to Win32
       (ftp://momjian.postgresql.org/pub/postgresql/win32/PeerDirect)
     * CONNX Win32 signal
       code(ftp://momjian.postgresql.org/pub/postgresql/win32/CONNX)
     * SRA port of PostgreSQL to Win32 (unfortunately, this is not
       publically available because the threaded portion is proprietary)
     * CHM help files
       (http://www.pgadmin.org/snapshots/help/en_US/pgadmin3.chm)
