Table of Contents

Building with Clang on Windows

You can build ezEngine using Clang on Windows. This can be useful to find and fix compilation errors and warnings, that do not happen with MSVC. However, as Clang support on Windows is still experimental, you may not be able to build a working executable.

Using Clang/LLVM with the CMake GUI

Prerequisites

  1. Install CMake (or locate cmake-gui.exe in the ez repository).
  2. Get a recent Clang Windows distribution: https://releases.llvm.org/download.html (the 64-bit version is recommended)
    • Note: The binary should be called something like LLVM-<version>-win64.exe
    • A Windows binary may not be available for the latest version, use an older version, if necessary.
  3. Get ninja from https://ninja-build.org and put it in your PATH environment variable.
  4. If you had to edit your PATH variable, restart your PC.

Generate a Solution

  1. Using cmake-gui.exe, create a new solution for a Clang build by pointing Where to build the binaries to a new location.
  2. Press Configure once, a dialog will show up.
  3. Choose Ninja as the generator.
  4. Choose Specify native compilers then hit Finish.
  5. Specify the C and C++ compiler. When using the default paths they are located at:
    • C: C:/Program Files/LLVM/bin/clang.exe
    • C++: C:/Program Files/LLVM/bin/clang++.exe
  6. Click Finish
  7. If CMake can't find your ninja.exe even though it is in your PATH set the CMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM manually to point to ninja.exe and click Configure again.
  8. You will now get an error from CMake No CMAKE_RC_COMPILER could be found.
    1. Check the Advanced checkbox to show additional options.
    2. Point CMAKE_RC_COMPILER to C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\<windows-sdk-version>\x64\rc.exe (for example C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.19041.0\x64\rc.exe).
    3. Also set CMAKE_RC_COMPILER_INIT to rc (if it even shows up).
  9. Click Configure
  10. Click Generate
  11. Open a Terminal and cd into the build location
  12. Run ninja to build.

Using the Clang frontend for Visual Studio with the CMake GUI

The clang frontend for the Visual Studio Compiler is no longer in development. Use official LLVM Clang as described above.

See Also

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