Compiling wxWidgets with MinGW

This article applies to the following versions
Platform	wxWidgets	MinGW
Windows XP	2.8.11	5.1.4
Windows 7	2.9.1	5.1.4
Status: Up to Date

Related Articles
Using Makefiles to compile wxWidgets

Install MinGW

Please follow the steps described in Installing MinGW under Windows.

Download and Install wxWidgets

See Downloading and installing wxWidgets.

Build the library

Open the command prompt (Start > Run... > cmd). Change the directory to the build\msw folder. For example:

CD wx\\wx288\\build\\msw

Clean up the source:

mingw32-make -f makefile.gcc MONOLITHIC=1 SHARED=1 UNICODE=1 BUILD=release clean

Then, compile the library:

mingw32-make -f makefile.gcc MONOLITHIC=1 SHARED=1 UNICODE=1 BUILD=release

Note: if you get errors like this:

if not exist gcc_mswu mkdir gcc_mswu
process_begin: CreateProcess(NULL, -c "if not exist gcc_mswu mkdir gcc_mswu", ...) failed.
make (e=2): The system cannot find the file specified.
mingw32-make: [gcc_mswu] Error 2 (ignored)
if not exist ..\..\lib\gcc_lib mkdir ..\..\lib\gcc_lib
process_begin: CreateProcess(NULL, -c "if not exist ..\..\lib\gcc_lib mkdir ..\..\lib\gcc_lib", ...) failed.
make (e=2): The system cannot find the file specified.
mingw32-make: *** [..\..\lib\gcc_lib] Error 2

it's probably because you have MSYS installed and the MSYS\bin folder in your PATH, and this confuses mingw32-make. Remove the MSYS\bin folder from your PATH and try again, it should work. (Alternatively, use MSYS to build wxWidgets, as described in build\msw\install.txt in the wxWidgets source tree).

Note: For more information on the UNICODE and BUILD options, see WxWidgets Build Configurations.

Build Output

In the example above a DLL was created under \lib\gcc_dll. The resultant setup.h file can be found under \lib\gcc_dll\mswu\wx

See Also

Understanding wxWidgets Build Scheme
Precompiled Headers in MinGW

External Links

Code::Block's WxWindowsQuickRef
Compiling wxWidgets 2.8.6 to develop Code::Blocks (MSW)