How to use the libraries?

[theuserbl]

Hi all!

Today I have downloaded the 0.09 binary for Windows.
At first it looks nice. Now existing all needed libraries for fbc.

For 0.08 I have had to download glut32.dll and sdl.dll, but now in 0.09 it looks, that all is included in the lib-path.

But then I looked into it, and it seemd that all libraries are in unix archives.
For example: The sdl.lib ist there called libsdl.dll.a
And I don't know how to handle it.
The example programs don't run with it. So I must again using my downloaded sdl.dll in c:\windows\system
With all other libraries there, I have the same problem.

How to use it?
I have seen, that now existing a new program in the bin directory: dlltools.
Can I extract with this program the libraries?

If I remember right, on Linux are in *.a files *.so files included. And .so files are the equivaltent to *.dll on windows.
So in the *.a files are the *.dll files included. But how can I reached them?

After I have all libraries, I will try to compile all examples.
But at the moment there existing some, which can be compiled, but can't run (because missing libs) and other can't be compile.


Greatings
theuserbl

[v3cz0r]

All .dll.a libs are actually import libraries, they are needed by the GNU linker (LD) to "invoke" functions on DLL's, they have no code other than a branch instruction to the actuall address (that will be fixed up by Windows at runtime when loading the executable).

The real DLL's must be installed at the Windows system directory or on the same .exe path. Install/copy them on/to the system directory (c:\win???\system32 on NT/2k/XP) and forget about them.

Any DLL distributed for development must come with an import library, if they are name say MYAPI.LIB, rename to libmyapi.dll.a and copy to FB's lib dir and it's done -- ow, you still need the header/include file to access any function, stills..