# Compiling with swipl-ld on MS Windows

**URL:** <https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [January 30, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761 "2025-01-30T17:06:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/1 "2025-01-30T17:06:11Z")

</div>

I’m trying to run this example:

[https://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/man?section=foreign-example](https://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/man?section=foreign-example)

I’m using MinGW32 as the toolchain.

This is what happens:

```prolog
> swipl-ld -goal true -o .\calc.c .\calc.pl -v
        eval `swipl.exe --dump-runtime-variables`
                PLBASE="c:/program files/swipl"
                PLARCH="x64-win64"
                PLSOEXT="dll"
                PLLIBDIR="c:/program files/swipl/bin"
                PLLIB="-lswipl"
                PLTHREADS="yes"
        gcc.exe -o .\calc.exe -L"c:/program files/swipl/bin" -lswipl
c:/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/6.3.0/../../../libmingw32.a(main.o):(.text.startup+0xa0): undefined reference to `WinMain@16'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status
gcc.exe returned code 1
*** C:\Program Files\swipl\bin\swipl-ld.exe exit status 1

```

I think this may be because I’m compiling on windows with .Net installed and the inclusion of different c++ toolchains in the same PATH is messing things up.

Is there any knowledge about compiling with swipl-ld on windows? The same command works fine on WSL (ubuntu) but I think I need to compile for windows (specifically for Unity).

To clarify what I really want to do is call my Prolog code from C (eventually C++ probably). I’m not currently trying to create a foreign predicate (hence why I’m following the C example; the C++ example shows how to compile a foreign predicate).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 5:36pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/2 "2025-01-30T17:36:26Z")

</div>

Reposting this for clarity.

I also tried compiling the C++ example here:

[https://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/man?section=cpp2-foreign-example](https://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/man?section=cpp2-foreign-example)

This raises some errors (and a lot of warnings which I took as errors in my previous post- sorry):

```prolog
In file included from c:\mingw\lib\gcc\mingw32\6.3.0\include\c++\cstdio:42:0,
                 from c:\mingw\lib\gcc\mingw32\6.3.0\include\c++\ext\string_conversions.h:43,
                 from c:\mingw\lib\gcc\mingw32\6.3.0\include\c++\bits\basic_string.h:5402,
                 from c:\mingw\lib\gcc\mingw32\6.3.0\include\c++\string:52,
                 from calc.cpp:1:
c:/program files/swipl/include/SWI-cpp2.h:1676:7: error: expected unqualified-id before ')' token
   int fileno();
       ^
c:/program files/swipl/include/SWI-cpp2.h:1676:7: error: expected ')' before '->' token
   int fileno();

In file included from c:/program files/swipl/include/SWI-cpp2.h:2083:0,
                 from calc.cpp:2:
c:/program files/swipl/include/SWI-cpp2.cpp:1032:29: error: expected unqualified-id before '(' token
 _SWI_CPP2_CPP_check_rc(int, fileno(), Sfileno(s_))
                             ^

g++ returned code 1
*** C:\Program Files\swipl\bin\swipl-ld.exe exit status 1

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/jan/32/4_2.png) [@jan](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/jan)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/3 "2025-01-30T18:20:56Z")

</div>

It doesn’t seem to pass the calc.c. Possibly it gets upset by the `.\`? That should in any case not be needed.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 6:26pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/4 "2025-01-30T18:26:26Z")

</div>

The `.\` was because I pressed tab to make sure the files are there. I get the same thing without it:

```prolog
> swipl-ld -goal true -o calc.c calc.pl -v
        eval `swipl.exe --dump-runtime-variables`
                PLBASE="c:/program files/swipl"
                PLARCH="x64-win64"
                PLSOEXT="dll"
                PLLIBDIR="c:/program files/swipl/bin"
                PLLIB="-lswipl"
                PLTHREADS="yes"
        gcc.exe -o calc.exe -L"c:/program files/swipl/bin" -lswipl
c:/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/6.3.0/../../../libmingw32.a(main.o):(.text.startup+0xa0): undefined reference to `WinMain@16'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status
gcc.exe returned code 1
*** C:\Program Files\swipl\bin\swipl-ld.exe exit status 1

```

I think I would prefer to use the .Net toolchain anyway. Is there some way to change to use the .Net c compiler instead of gcc?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/jan/32/4_2.png) [@jan](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/jan)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 6:49pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/5 "2025-01-30T18:49:35Z")

</div>

> [@stassa.p](#):
>
> `-o calc.c`

You don’t want that. You probably want `-o calc calc.c`

> [@stassa.p](#):
>
> I think I would prefer to use the .Net toolchain anyway. Is there some way to change to use the .Net c compiler instead of gcc?

Not easily using `swipl-ld`. You can use `-cc <compiler>`, but the default only understands the gcc/clang command line options.

Eventually we should probably rewrite `swipl-ld` as a swipl “app”. Doing the thing entirely in Prolog is probably a lot simpler and easier to extend for users.

**edit** Note that SWI-Prolog also provides a cmake include file. That facilitates building projects using cmake that extend or embed SWI-Prolog.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CapelliC](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/capellic/32/17_2.png) [@CapelliC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/CapelliC)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 6:54pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/6 "2025-01-30T18:54:00Z")

</div>

Hi Stassa

I had no problem with swipl-ld, running from powershell and compiling with the command line from [the reference example](https://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/man?section=cpp2-foreign-example):

```prolog
    Directory: C:\Users\cccar\test\swi\help_stassa

Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a---- 30/01/2025 19:31 533 calc.cpp
-a---- 30/01/2025 19:31 110 calc.pl

PS C:\Users\cccar\test\swi\help_stassa> swipl-ld -o calc -goal true calc.cpp calc.pl
% Disabled autoloading (loaded 37 files)
% Disabled autoloading (loaded 9 files)
% Disabled autoloading (loaded 0 files)
% halt
PS C:\Users\cccar\test\swi\help_stassa> ./calc.exe 1+2
3
PS C:\Users\cccar\test\swi\help_stassa>

```

Anyway, I have a .net solution (runnable and debuggable, using Visual Studio Developer Edition 2022) test\_swicpp2, that doesn’t use swipl-ld.

```prolog
#include <iostream>
#include <stdexcept>
#include <SWI-cpp2.h>

/** fast interface to get a string out of a ground term.
  * thanks Jan !
  */
std::wstring serialize(PlTerm t) {
    wchar_t* s;

    if (PL_get_wchars(t.unwrap(), NULL, &s, CVT_WRITEQ | BUF_RING))
        return s;

    throw PlTypeError("serialize", t);
}

void test1() {
    using namespace std;

    PlTermv av(2);
    PlTerm_tail l(av[1]);
    for (long i : { 1,2,3 })
        if (!l.append(PlTerm_integer(i)))
            throw runtime_error("!l.append(PlTerm_integer(i))");
    if (!l.close())
        throw runtime_error("!l.close()");

    PlQuery q("member", av);
    while (q.next_solution()) {
        cout << av[0].as_string() << ',' << av[1].as_string() << endl;
        wcout << av[0].as_wstring() << ',' << av[1].as_wstring() << endl;
        wcout << serialize(av[0]) << ',' << serialize(av[1]) << endl;
    }
}

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    PlEngine e(argc, argv);
    std::cout << "Hello swipl!\n";
    try {
        test1();
    }
    catch (std::exception& e) {
        std::cerr << e.what() << std::endl;
    }
}

```

that produces

```prolog
Welcome to SWI-Prolog (threaded, 64 bits, version 9.3.17-1-g21264b88c)
SWI-Prolog comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software.
Please run ?- license. for legal details.

For online help and background, visit https://www.swi-prolog.org
For built-in help, use ?- help(Topic). or ?- apropos(Word).

Hello swipl!
1,
1,
1,[1,2,3]
2,
2,
2,[1,2,3]
3,
3,
3,[1,2,3]

```

If you are interested, let me know.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 8:00pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/7 "2025-01-30T20:00:37Z")

</div>

> [@jan](#):
>
> You don’t want that. You probably want `-o calc calc.c`

Oh, sorry, I thought I was copying from the SWI documentation. I still get an error though, but I think that’s just missing some include file:

```Prolog
> swipl-ld -goal true -o calc calc.c calc.pl -v
        eval `swipl.exe --dump-runtime-variables`
                PLBASE="c:/program files/swipl"
                PLARCH="x64-win64"
                PLSOEXT="dll"
                PLLIBDIR="c:/program files/swipl/bin"
                PLLIB="-lswipl"
                PLTHREADS="yes"
        gcc.exe -c -D_REENTRANT -D __WINDOWS__ -D_WINDOWS -D __SWI_PROLOG__ -D __SWI_EMBEDDED__ -I"c:/program files/swipl/include" -o calc.obj calc.c
        gcc.exe -o calc.exe calc.obj -L"c:/program files/swipl/bin" -lswipl
calc.obj:calc.c:(.text+0xc8): undefined reference to `PL_initialise'
calc.obj:calc.c:(.text+0xdb): undefined reference to `PL_halt'
calc.obj:calc.c:(.text+0xf7): undefined reference to `PL_predicate'
calc.obj:calc.c:(.text+0x10a): undefined reference to `PL_new_term_refs'
calc.obj:calc.c:(.text+0x128): undefined reference to `PL_put_atom_chars'
calc.obj:calc.c:(.text+0x152): undefined reference to `PL_call_predicate'
calc.obj:calc.c:(.text+0x172): undefined reference to `PL_halt'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status
gcc.exe returned code 1
        rm calc.obj
*** C:\Program Files\swipl\bin\swipl-ld.exe exit status 1

```

> [@jan](#):
>
> Eventually we should probably rewrite `swipl-ld` as a swipl “app”. Doing the thing entirely in Prolog is probably a lot simpler and easier to extend for users.

That would certainly help me so great idea 🙂

> [@jan](#):
>
> **edit** Note that [SWI-Prolog](https://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/doc_for?object=manual) also provides a cmake include file. That facilitates building projects using cmake that extend or embed SWI-Prolog.

More stuff I haven’t tried to do for years! More fun for me!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 8:03pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/8 "2025-01-30T20:03:56Z")

</div>

Hi Carlo,

> [@CapelliC](#):
>
> I had no problem with swipl-ld, running from powershell and compiling with the command line from [the reference example](https://www.swi-prolog.org/pldoc/man?section=cpp2-foreign-example):

Thanks! I got the command line wrong. I tried it again but I get that error above. There might be something wrong with my MinGW installation or my SWI-Prolog installation (I’m on the latest daily build for SWI).

> [@CapelliC](#):
>
> If you are interested, let me know.

I don’t know - I’m trying to call Prolog from C/C++. Does your example change considerably in that case?

Sorry I’m still at the level of hello world here 🙂

Edit: Oh, wait, hang on. You _are_ calling Prolog from C++. I saw the version header and got confused. Yes I’m interested - can I run this example like that or do I need some more code?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CapelliC](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/capellic/32/17_2.png) [@CapelliC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/CapelliC)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 8:36pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/9 "2025-01-30T20:36:17Z")

</div>

> [@stassa.p](#):
>
> can I run this example like that or do I need some more code?

I have pushed the cleaned up solution to [github](https://github.com/CapelliC/test_swicpp2).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 8:37pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/10 "2025-01-30T20:37:09Z")

</div>

Thanks! That’s a big favour. I owe you one! 😃

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CapelliC](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/capellic/32/17_2.png) [@CapelliC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/CapelliC)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 8:40pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/11 "2025-01-30T20:40:16Z")

</div>

I forgot: you should define the environment variable **SWI\_HOME\_DIR** to something like **C:\Program Files\swipl**. As you can see, it’s the default installation directory. The includes are relative to this…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 8:45pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/12 "2025-01-30T20:45:29Z")

</div>

Thanks. I’ll have to understand what’s wrong in my installation (not sure which one) because VS can’t find the SWI-cpp2.h header even when I included it in the project.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2025, 9:23pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/13 "2025-01-30T21:23:44Z")

</div>

Thanks @CapelliC

```prolog
> .\test_swicpp2.exe
Welcome to SWI-Prolog (threaded, 64 bits, version 9.3.19-13-gc4848cb0b)
SWI-Prolog comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software.
Please run ?- license. for legal details.

For online help and background, visit https://www.swi-prolog.org
For built-in help, use ?- help(Topic). or ?- apropos(Word).

Hello swipl!
1,
1,
1,[1,2,3]
2,
2,
2,[1,2,3]
3,
3,
3,[1,2,3]

```

I don’t know why it was so hard to tell VS to find the SWI-cpp2.h header… I think I need to go lie down now.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/jan/32/4_2.png) [@jan](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/jan)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2025, 7:42am UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/14 "2025-01-31T07:42:58Z")

</div>

> [@stassa.p](#):
>
> ```prolog
> gcc.exe -o calc.exe calc.obj -L"c:/program files/swipl/bin" -lswipl
> calc.obj:calc.c:(.text+0xc8): undefined reference to `PL_initialise'
> 
> ```

I don’t really understand this. AFAIK, MinGW gcc can link directly to DLLs. At least, it is not complaining that libswipl does not exist. I’ll have a look.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2025, 11:48am UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/15 "2025-01-31T11:48:13Z")

</div>

Thanks. I think this was before I added the swi include/ directory to my Path so maybe that’s what caused it?

I removed MinGW now but I can put it back and try again if you like to see if I can still reproduce this?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2025, 2:07pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/16 "2025-01-31T14:07:13Z")

</div>

> [@stassa.p](#):
>
> `swipl-ld -goal true -o calc calc.c calc.pl -v`

So I reinstalled MinGW and I get the same output exactly as before, not bothering to copy it again here because I’m going to clutter the conversation a bit anyway.

I don’t know if this helps but here are the contents of my swipl/bin directory:

```prolog
> ls 'C:\Program Files\swipl\bin\'

    Directory: C:\Program Files\swipl\bin

Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 31232 archive4pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 32256 bdb4pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 48128 cgi.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 27648 crypt.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 86016 crypto4pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 26112 double_metaphone.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 19968 files.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 39936 hashstream.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 33792 http_stream.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 31744 inclpr.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 16384 isub.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 55296 janus.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 88576 jpl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 16896 json.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:25 AM 94 latex2html
-a---- 11/26/2024 8:53 AM 1544239 libarchive-13.dll
-a---- 12/19/2024 11:11 AM 6353408 libcrypto-3-x64.dll
-a---- 11/26/2024 9:00 AM 2094413 libdb-6.1.dll
-a---- 10/6/2024 1:00 AM 934816 libgcc_s_seh-1.dll
-a---- 7/18/2024 1:00 AM 528872 libgmp-10.dll
-a---- 7/18/2024 1:00 AM 881834 libjpeg-62.dll
-a---- 7/22/2021 7:59 PM 284109 libpcre-1.dll
-a---- 7/18/2024 1:00 AM 675940 libpcre2-8-0.dll
-a---- 12/19/2024 11:11 AM 1174528 libssl-3-x64.dll
-a---- 10/6/2024 1:00 AM 88037 libssp-0.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 1507328 libswipl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:27 AM 297866 libswipl.dll.a
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:27 AM 297866 libswipl.lib
-a---- 10/14/2024 1:00 AM 68679 libwinpthread-1.dll
-a---- 11/26/2024 8:47 AM 498902 libyaml-0-2.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 18432 md54pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 31232 memfile.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 23040 ntriples.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 88064 odbc4pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 39936 pcre4pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 15872 pdt_console.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 2167808 pl2xpce.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 22016 plregtry.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 60928 plterm.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 25600 porter_stem.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 31744 process.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 16896 prolog_stream.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 17920 protobufs.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 229376 rdf_db.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 15872 readutil.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 51712 redis4pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 202752 sgml2pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 40448 sha4pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 146432 snowball.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 70144 socket.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 95744 ssl4pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 17408 streaminfo.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 24064 sweep-module.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 112128 swipl-ld.exe
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 102912 swipl-win.exe
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 16384 swipl.exe
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:25 AM 3 swipl.home
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 84992 table.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 106496 tex.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 28160 time.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 59392 turtle.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 544256 unicode4pl.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 30208 uri.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 50176 uuid.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 23552 websocket.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 28160 yaml4pl.dll
-a---- 7/18/2024 1:00 AM 108852 zlib1.dll
-a---- 1/30/2025 4:34 AM 19968 zlib4pl.dll

```

This is what was created by yesterday’s installation of the latest daily build for windows at the time (version 9.3.19-13-gc4848cb0b - the installer is most likely swipl-w64-2025-01-30.exe).

I can’t really tell if there’s something missing in my swipl/bin, but I can see libswpl.dll. I think that’s what gcc is trying to access and failing?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CapelliC](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/capellic/32/17_2.png) [@CapelliC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/CapelliC)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2025, 2:31pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/17 "2025-01-31T14:31:42Z")

</div>

> [@stassa.p](#):
>
> I reinstalled MinGW

In the yesterday output I noticed your MinGW was pretty old, and 32 bits, but (at least in the first post) you were requesting PLARCH=“x64-win64”.

Here is (one of) current C++s in my machine:

```prolog
gcc --version
gcc.exe (Rev7, Built by MSYS2 project) 13.1.0

```

I think every compiler I have right now is 64 bits…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2025, 2:33pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/18 "2025-01-31T14:33:22Z")

</div>

Yes, I got MinGW 32 - I went to install the 64bit version but I was confused by the options so I figured the 32 bit would work too. I didn’t notice the request for the 64 bits architecture.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stassa.p](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/stassa.p/32/712_2.png) [@stassa.p](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/stassa.p)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2025, 3:43pm UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/19 "2025-01-31T15:43:49Z")

</div>

I think that was it after all. I switched to MinGW 64 and this now compIles without error:

```prolog
> swipl-ld -goal true -o calc calc.c calc.pl -v
        eval `swipl.exe --dump-runtime-variables`
                PLBASE="c:/program files/swipl"
                PLARCH="x64-win64"
                PLSOEXT="dll"
                PLLIBDIR="c:/program files/swipl/bin"
                PLLIB="-lswipl"
                PLTHREADS="yes"
        gcc.exe -c -D_REENTRANT -D __WINDOWS__ -D_WINDOWS -D __SWI_PROLOG__ -D __SWI_EMBEDDED__ -I"c:/program files/swipl/include" -o calc.obj calc.c
        gcc.exe -o calc.exe calc.obj -L"c:/program files/swipl/bin" -lswipl
        swipl.exe -f none -F none -g true -t "consult(['calc.pl']),qsave_program('pltmp-3384.exe',[goal=true,toplevel=prolog,init_file=none])"
% Disabled autoloading (loaded 37 files)
% Disabled autoloading (loaded 5 files)
% Disabled autoloading (loaded 0 files)
% halt
        cat pltmp-3384.exe >> calc.exe
        chmod 777 calc.exe
        rm calc.obj
        rm pltmp-3384.exe

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mgondan1](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/swi-prolog.discourse.group/mgondan1/32/803_2.png) [@mgondan1](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/u/mgondan1)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 10:02am UTC](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761/20 "2025-02-03T10:02:13Z")

</div>

If you have some time, please check if it works on the mingw system(s) provided by msys2.

[Next page](https://swi-prolog.discourse.group/t/compiling-with-swipl-ld-on-ms-windows/8761.md?page=2)