MAKING MLKIT CROSSCOMPILE APPLICATIONS FROM LINUX TO WINDOWS

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This document describes how to make DIKU's Standard ML compiler MLKit crosscompile applications from Linux to Windows. It's not a complete port of MLKit, so things like profiling does not work and some things in the SML basis library will not work. It requires (among other things) the SML/NJ compiler and a gcc native compiler and a gcc crosscompiler and possibly some patience.

Just follow the description in this document step by step and hopefully it will work :)

Do what is described in this document step by step...

The basic setup

First install and compile a native Linux version of MLKit. You might want this compiler for compiling your applications natively. I recommend using SML/NJ version 110.0.6 for compiling and installing MLKit. In particular I know that MLKit does NOT compile with SML/NJ working version 110.9.1 and that SML/NJ version 110.0.3 has memory leaks in it's garbage collector.

Then install MLKit again somewhere else. Now also compile this as a native Linux compiler. When this second native MLKit compiler has been compiled you should modify the sourcecode as described below.

Sourcecode patches

Do the following in the order described:

• Replace the following files under 'src/Runtime', with these files: Math.c, Runtime.c, Time.c, IO.c, Profiling.c and String.c.
• I also changed a line of code in 'src/Common/Flags.sml' but I actually don't think it's necessary. I changed the line 'val c_libs = ref "-lm"' to 'val c_libs = ref "-lmingw32 -mwindows -L/usr/local/lib -lSDL"'
• Put the file SDL_mangle.h under 'src/Runtime'. Notice that SDL_mangle.h is taken from Sam Lantiga's SDL library. Using this means that you will problably have to link your applications with SDL to make it work. If you don't want this you will have to find some other way of making your application call WinMain instead of main (Windows requires this). I started hacking up something for the MLTon in the file mlton-lib.h which should be almost complete.
• Activate your gcc Linux to Windows crosscompiler by setting the appropriate path. I have used the binary available here with great success: http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/Xmingw32/.
• Now go to 'src/', start your SML/NJ compiler and recompile MLKit by typing 'use "build.sml"' (hopefully still using the gcc Linux to Windows crosscompiler).
• It might work now, and if so - we're happy. However I don't recall whether I also deleted some of the '*.o' files to get them recompiled. But if this is the case, you will get compiler errors when either linking the MLKit runtime or during linking when trying to crosscompile applications.

If all went well you now have some working runtime libraries ready to be linked with when crosscompiling. When crosscompiling, you need to change the libraries that MLKit links with. In the MLKit menu you just go to Control and choose: link with library. If you're crosscompiling SDL applications you should type "-lmingw32 -mwindows -L/usr/local/lib -lSDL". If you're compiling without SDL, I'm not sure which libraries to link with, but possibly some of those mentioned above :)

Hopefully you're all set. Now you might want to check out how to use my SDL bindings for ML - SDL::ML.

Modified: 2023-05-19
E-mail: Contact