Linking project on MinGW Netbeans 7.0 and SDL 2 on Windows

Question

As I tried to upgrade from my graphics programming from "legacy openGL" x "SDL 1.x" to OpenGL3+ x SDL2 and I came across linking problems. I tried many linking parameters but nothing seems to work.

I tried SDL1 linking params: linking listing 1

-lmingw32 -lSDLmain -lSDL

It works fine with this code: code listing 1

#include <SDL2/SDL.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{

    if(SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) < 0)
    {
        SDL_Quit();

        return -1;
    }

    SDL_Quit();

    return 0;
}

but when I add SDL2 codes to it like this: code listing 2

#include <SDL2/SDL.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{   
    SDL_Window* window(0);

    if(SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) < 0)
    {
        SDL_Quit();

        return -1;
    }

    window = SDL_CreateWindow("Test SDL 2.0", SDL_WINDOWPOS_CENTERED, SDL_WINDOWPOS_CENTERED, 800, 600, SDL_WINDOW_SHOWN);

    SDL_DestroyWindow(window);
    SDL_Quit();

    return 0;
}

I get linking errors: error listing 1

g++     -o dist/Debug/MinGW-Windows/sdl2 build/Debug/MinGW-Windows/main.o  -lmingw32 -lSDLmain -lSDL
build/Debug/MinGW-Windows/main.o: In function `SDL_main':
C:\Users\Paikuhan\Documents\NetBeansProjects\SDL2/main.cpp:21: undefined reference to `SDL_CreateWindow'
C:\Users\Paikuhan\Documents\NetBeansProjects\SDL2/main.cpp:23: undefined reference to `SDL_DestroyWindow'

collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status

swaping linking params to this: linking listing 2

-lmingw32 -lSDL -lSDLmain

gives even more errors (I won't write them down). Adding a '2' to the params like this: linking listing 3

-lmingw32 -lSDL2main -lSDL2

gives me more linking errors than without the 2s: error listing 2

g++     -o dist/Debug/MinGW-Windows/sdl2 build/Debug/MinGW-Windows/main.o  -lmingw32 -lSDL2main -lSDL2
build/Debug/MinGW-Windows/main.o: In function `SDL_main':
C:\Users\Paikuhan\Documents\NetBeansProjects\SDL2/main.cpp:14: undefined reference to `SDL_Init'
C:\Users\Paikuhan\Documents\NetBeansProjects\SDL2/main.cpp:16: undefined reference to `SDL_Quit'
C:\Users\Paikuhan\Documents\NetBeansProjects\SDL2/main.cpp:21: undefined reference to `SDL_CreateWindow'
C:\Users\Paikuhan\Documents\NetBeansProjects\SDL2/main.cpp:23: undefined reference to `SDL_DestroyWindow'
C:\Users\Paikuhan\Documents\NetBeansProjects\SDL2/main.cpp:24: undefined reference to `SDL_Quit'
c:/programs/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/4.8.1/../../../../mingw32/lib/libmingw32.a(main.o): In function `main':
e:\p\giaw\src\pkg\mingwrt-4.0.3-1-mingw32-src\bld/../mingwrt-4.0.3-1-mingw32-src/src/libcrt/crt/main.c:91: undefined reference to `WinMain@16'
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status

as if no single SDL functions were found and I do have the libraries (libSDL2.a, libSDL2.dll.a, libSDL2.la, libSDL2main.a, pkgconfig\sdl2.pc) in the lib directory. I also tried using this set of params in netbeans: linking listing 4

$(pkg-config --cflags --libs sdl2)

and it doesn't do any good. Can anyone please help me on this. Thank you!

You need to link SDL2main before SDL2, like you did the second time. Where did you put your SDL2 header files ? Did you add this folder to your compiler search folder ? — jordsti, Feb 27 '14 at 15:01
Hi, -lmingw32 -lSDL2main -lSDL2 and -lmingw32 -lSDL2 -lmingw32 -lSDL2main give me both the same errors (error listing 2). To setup netbeans so that it uses the compiler and finds all the proper headers and libraries, I followed this tutorial https://netbeans.org/community/releases/73/cpp-setup-instructions.html#compilers . i.e. adding the paths to the binaries for MinGW and MSYS tools to my PATH. I know thanks to netbeans the compiler finds the files it needs. Because if it doesn't, a linking error like "cannot find -lSDL2main" will show up!! g++ -v gives me this "gcc version 4.8.1 (GCC)" — Paiku Han, Feb 27 '14 at 18:17

Paiku Han · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-28T15:20:23.467

Problem Solved! I tried to troubleshoot the linking errors. Now everything works fine!! LazyFoo's tutorial has the answer "Most importantly i686-w64-mingw32 which contains the 32bit library [...] This is important: most compilers still compile 32bit binaries by default to maximize compatibility. [...]". So I re-extracted all the 32bit files in their corresponding directories. Now everything works like a charm. My guess is I used the 64bit libs with the 32bit mingw compiler.

both linking params work fine. this:

$(pkg-config --cflags --libs sdl2)

or this:

-lmingw32 -lSDL2main -lSDL2

Linking project on MinGW Netbeans 7.0 and SDL 2 on Windows

1 Answers1