Visual Studio project files to compile exiv2 on Windows (x86/x64/Release/Debug)
One of the main building blocks for a personal product that I was developing was exiv2. When I started this project, support for building on Windows using Visual Studio was quite good and in particular, Robin Mills, the then maintainer, was excellent in helping resolve questions.
However, as time progressed, the maintainers changed and their primary focus turned to Linux and Windows compilation was an afterthought accomplished by the swiss knife CMake. In reality, CMake, produces horrible Visual Studio solution/projects that just creates wrappers on cmake commands, tries to enforce the Linux custom of all dependencies installed in a single location like /usr/local as well as not retaining the flexibility of targeting separate x86/x64/Release/Debug builds while using the same solution/projects.
The native solution/project files were removed from the exiv2 repository and not even added to a contrib folder for others to use, a restriction that I found particularly galling. The fact that the main audience didn't squeal much at these steps is not the answer as they may not care about compiling on Windows using VS. This was a retrograde step, but they believed that they were going forward.
One can never predict what the world wants. If one is not open to possibilities and instead, claims that my way is the highway, the utility of the product is diminished. This project is to help people who would like to build exiv2 using Visual Studio on Windows, to do so.
Unlike the linux-style philosophy of installing everything in and then, linking from, /usr/local-type folders, typically source trees on Windows are not organized that way. At least, I don't.
I prefer to git clone from the target repository onto my workspace. I also prefer to get the latest git versions of exiv2's dependencies as well. This is an important distinction. The usual philosophy would install released packages (say into C:\Program Files...) and the compiled package to link against them.
The advantage with my approach is that I have a transparent solution with all the dependencies visible explicitly instead of needing to be added in areas like Additional Libraries. The debugger is able to step into any area of the code, including the dependencies easily instead of worrying whether the dependency is release/debug compiled and is consistent with all the choices that I make for the application (like static/runtime CRT or x86/x64 or Release/Debug).
This involves creating one solution and including in it, multiple projects (its own as well as those of the dependencies) and linking the dependencies through references instead of explicit identification through path/folder names.
For e.g. exiv2 will be git-cloned into E:\Projects\exiv2. libexpat (a dependency that is required for compiling exiv2) will be git-cloned to E:\Projects\libexpat. The exiv2 solution will have the exiv2 project (it has many more, but mentioning just one for simplifying the exposition) and the expat-static project (from libexpat). The expat-static project is added as a reference to the exiv2 project. This make Visual Studio generate the correct dependency heirarchy and compile correctly.
Because these are project files that are pre-generated, they expect exiv2 and its dependencies to be placed in a certain hierarchy.
Each of the dependencies will have to be placed at the same level as the exiv2 source tree.
For e.g.
C:\Sources\exiv2 C:\Sources\zlib C:\Sources\openssl C:\Sources\libssh2
and so on. The requirement that it be at the same level as the exiv2 source tree is only mandated in a relative sense. That is, you could have your exiv2 sources in C:\Sources or E:\Projects or C:\Users\Sridhar\Documents\VS\exiv2. There are problems with spaces in directory names, because there are some commands executed through utilities like perl which may not handle them well. Please don't use spaces.
Just like the solution/project file to compile exiv2 in VS (the one that you are reading about now), most dependencies also have similar VS solution/project files, because their VS-build infrastructure is deficient. Specific instructions on fetching these project files separately and copying them to the source tree is given below for each dependency. I fetch these *-x86_x64 repositories into a separate folder from these other source folders. For e.g., I keep these in E:\Projects\github. Whereas the sources are in E:\Projects.
Theoretically, just fetching these dependency sources, placing them in the correct folder hierarchies, fetching their associated VS project files and placing them in the source tree in specific folders (detailed below) should be enough to compile exiv2 directly. exiv2 links against static libraries of these dependencies. However, these dependencies are full-fledged distributions that contain, apart from those libraries that exiv2 needs, other executables and tests. These can be compiled, optionally, if one needs to test the integrity of those projects.
Some of these dependencies depend on other dependencies. Thus, it is best if they are executed in the order shown below.
exiv2 -vV (output of generated exiv2.exe on my machine for reference)``` shell exiv2 0.27.2
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA exiv2=0.27.2 platform=windows compiler=MSVC bits=64 dll=0 debug=0 cplusplus=199711 version=13.25 (2017/x64) date=Apr 6 2020 time=11:28:24 processpath=E:\My Projects\exiv2\contrib\vs2019\solution\src\x64\Release localedir=/../share/locale package_name=exiv2 curlprotocols=dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp scp sftp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp curl=1 executable=E:\Projects\exiv2\contrib\vs2019\solution\src\x64\Release\exiv2.exe library=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll library=C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\aswhook.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\KERNEL32.DLL library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\KERNELBASE.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\ucrtbase.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\PSAPI.DLL library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\WS2_32.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\RPCRT4.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\SHELL32.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\cfgmgr32.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\shcore.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\msvcrt.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\combase.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\bcryptPrimitives.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\windows.storage.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\msvcp_win.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\sechost.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\advapi32.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\profapi.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\powrprof.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\UMPDC.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\shlwapi.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\GDI32.dll library=C:\WINDOWS\System32\win32u.dll have_strerror_r=0 have_gmtime_r=0 have_inttypes=0 have_libintl=0 have_lensdata=1 have_iconv=1 have_memory=1 have_lstat=0 have_regex=0 have_regex_h=0 have_stdbool=1 have_stdint=1 have_stdlib=0 have_strlib=0 have_strerror_r=0 have_strings_h=0 have_mmap=0 have_munmap=0 have_sys_stat=1 have_unistd_h=0 have_sys_mman=0 have_libz=1 have_xmptoolkit=1 adobe_xmpsdk=0 have_bool=0 have_strings=0 have_sys_types=1 have_unistd=0 have_unicode_path=1 enable_video=1 enable_webready=1 enable_nls=1 use_curl=1 use_ssh=1 config_path=C:\Users\Sridhar\exiv2.ini xmlns=DICOM:http://ns.adobe.com/DICOM/ xmlns=GPano:http://ns.google.com/photos/1.0/panorama/ xmlns=Iptc4xmpCore:http://iptc.org/std/Iptc4xmpCore/1.0/xmlns/ xmlns=Iptc4xmpExt:http://iptc.org/std/Iptc4xmpExt/2008-02-29/ xmlns=MP:http://ns.microsoft.com/photo/1.2/ xmlns=MPRI:http://ns.microsoft.com/photo/1.2/t/RegionInfo# xmlns=MPReg:http://ns.microsoft.com/photo/1.2/t/Region# xmlns=MicrosoftPhoto:http://ns.microsoft.com/photo/1.0/ xmlns=acdsee:http://ns.acdsee.com/iptc/1.0/ xmlns=album:http://ns.adobe.com/album/1.0/ xmlns=asf:http://ns.adobe.com/asf/1.0/ xmlns=audio:http://www.audio/ xmlns=aux:http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/aux/ xmlns=bmsp:http://ns.adobe.com/StockPhoto/1.0/ xmlns=creatorAtom:http://ns.adobe.com/creatorAtom/1.0/ xmlns=crs:http://ns.adobe.com/camera-raw-settings/1.0/ xmlns=crss:http://ns.adobe.com/camera-raw-saved-settings/1.0/ xmlns=dc:http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/ xmlns=dcterms:http://purl.org/dc/terms/ xmlns=digiKam:http://www.digikam.org/ns/1.0/ xmlns=dwc:http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/index.htm xmlns=exif:http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/ xmlns=exifEX:http://cipa.jp/exif/1.0/ xmlns=expressionmedia:http://ns.microsoft.com/expressionmedia/1.0/ xmlns=iX:http://ns.adobe.com/iX/1.0/ xmlns=jp2k:http://ns.adobe.com/jp2k/1.0/ xmlns=jpeg:http://ns.adobe.com/jpeg/1.0/ xmlns=kipi:http://www.digikam.org/ns/kipi/1.0/ xmlns=lr:http://ns.adobe.com/lightroom/1.0/ xmlns=mediapro:http://ns.iview-multimedia.com/mediapro/1.0/ xmlns=mwg-kw:http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/schemas/keywords/ xmlns=mwg-rs:http://www.metadataworkinggroup.com/schemas/regions/ xmlns=pdf:http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/ xmlns=pdfaExtension:http://www.aiim.org/pdfa/ns/extension/ xmlns=pdfaField:http://www.aiim.org/pdfa/ns/field# xmlns=pdfaProperty:http://www.aiim.org/pdfa/ns/property# xmlns=pdfaSchema:http://www.aiim.org/pdfa/ns/schema# xmlns=pdfaType:http://www.aiim.org/pdfa/ns/type# xmlns=pdfaid:http://www.aiim.org/pdfa/ns/id/ xmlns=pdfx:http://ns.adobe.com/pdfx/1.3/ xmlns=pdfxid:http://www.npes.org/pdfx/ns/id/ xmlns=photoshop:http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop/1.0/ xmlns=plus:http://ns.useplus.org/ldf/xmp/1.0/ xmlns=png:http://ns.adobe.com/png/1.0/ xmlns=rdf:http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# xmlns=stArea:http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/sType/Area# xmlns=stDim:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Dimensions# xmlns=stEvt:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceEvent# xmlns=stFnt:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Font# xmlns=stJob:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Job# xmlns=stMfs:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ManifestItem# xmlns=stRef:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceRef# xmlns=stVer:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/Version# xmlns=tiff:http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/ xmlns=video:http://www.video/ xmlns=wav:http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/wav/1.0/ xmlns=xml:http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace xmlns=xmp:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/ xmlns=xmpBJ:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/bj/ xmlns=xmpDM:http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/1.0/DynamicMedia/ xmlns=xmpG:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/g/ xmlns=xmpGImg:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/g/img/ xmlns=xmpMM:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/ xmlns=xmpNote:http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/note/ xmlns=xmpRights:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/rights/ xmlns=xmpT:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/t/ xmlns=xmpTPg:http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/t/pg/ xmlns=xmpidq:http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/Identifier/qual/1.0/ ```