[Mo Dejong] 10-12-2005

This page describes how to build Tcl/Tk under Windows using the [Msys] and [Mingw] packages.
Mingw is a gcc port for Windows that can be used to build native Win32 applications and
dlls. Msys is a bash shell ported to Windows that is used to run Tcl's configure script.
This page does not describe how to build Tcl/Tk with VC++, although that build environment
is also supported. It may possible to build Tcl/Tk with other compilers like the Borland
or Cygwin, but these tools are not well supported and will require some effort to get
everything working.

Building Tcl/Tk 8.4.11, the current stable release.

'''First (Downloads)''':
   1. Go to http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=10894
   2. Download msys_mingw8.zip (or newer version)
   3. Download tcl8411-src.zip
   4. Download tk8411-src.zip
   
'''Second (Unzip)''':
   1. Unzip msys_mingw8.zip to whereever you want to keep it (I put mine on the root of the C drive.)  It will create a top level directory called msys and a directory tree underneath containing all necessary files for msys/mingw operation.
   2. Create a src directory somewhere convenient.  I used /src (C:\msys\src if looking at it from outside msys.)
   3. Unzip tcl8411-src.zip into the src directory
   4. Unzip tk8411-src.zip into the src directory

'''Third (Build Tcl)''':
   1. mkdir /build
   2. mkdir /build/tcl
   3. cd /build/tcl
   4. /src/tcl8.4.11/win/configure --prefix=/opt/tcl
   5. make
   6. make install
   
'''Fourth (Build Tk)''':
   1. mkdir /build/tk
   2. cd /build/tk
   3. /src/tk8.4.11/win/configure --prefix=/opt/tcl --with-tcl=/build/tcl
   4. make
   5. make install

'''NOTE''':
At this point Everything is installed and should be working. You could delete /build and /src if you wanted to. You will find it all in /opt/tcl (C:\msys\opt\tcl). Run Tcl from the msys shell by starting the tclsh84 shell found in /opt/tcl/bin. Run Tk from the msys shell by starting the wish84 shell found in /opt/tcl/bin.

'''See also'''

   * [mingw]
   * [Building TclBlend with msys_mingw]
   * [cygwin]
   * [Building Tcl under cygwin with MINGW]

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