DLL management for C++ with MinGW?

Question

I recently decided to take a look at 2D graphics with C++, using MinGW on Windows 7.

Since I was only going to need 2D graphics any library would be viable more or less (OpenGL, SDL, etc..). I decided to take a quick look at a few and check how easy they'd be to get working on windows with MinGW.

I soon noticed every library I tested (which were Cairo, SDL and GTK+) required tons of dll files in order to work. After compiling even a simple program from something like a tutorial it would give me like 5 or 6 different dll errors, forcing me to copy all of them into my program's working directory for it to even run.

Of course my program worked, but it's very cubersome to have this many DLLs just for a simple program. Making the program run on someone else's computer would require to ship all those DLLs along with it as seperate files, plus other DLLs that I got globally installed but others don't.

It just seems so weird that something as popular as C++ would be so annoying to use because of all the DLLs required... Am I doing anything wrong? Could there be some magical solution to this problem? Some tool to minimize or even completely eliminate these complications? It'd be cool to have to use fewer DLLs for my application. Of course I won't be able to omit DLLs completely, but at least reducing the amount to a single one (one library = one DLL) or having the possibility to organize them in a subfolder of their own would be awesome.

Answer 1

Of course my program worked, but it's very cubersome to have this many DLLs just for a simple program. Making the program run on someone else's computer would require to ship all those DLLs along with it as seperate files, plus other DLLs that I got globally installed but others don't.

If you're making an installer for your program, the installer should take care of installing the DLLs right alongside your program. It's pretty common practice, and won't be inconvenient for your user at all. If you're just distributing a zip file with your app in it, just keep the DLLs in the folder you're zipping up (also a pretty common practice).

It's also worth noting that you'll already have to send DLLs with your app. GCC apps need libgcc_s_sjlj-1.dll and libstdc++-6.dll. MSVC apps, if I recall correctly, rely on the Visual C++ runtime library. A few more graphics libraries aren't likely to bother the user at all.

Am I doing anything wrong?

Nope, this seems like business as usual to me. I recommend you continue your project without worrying too much about the DLLs.

Could there be some magical solution to this problem? Some tool to minimize or even completely eliminate these complications?

You could look into a DLL/EXE packer. It's highly unrecommended, though, because antiviruses tend to not appreciate the modified EXEs. (A lot of malware uses packing techniques, so antiviruses are often suspicious of such packed apps by default.)

at least reducing the amount to a single one (one library = one DLL)

Technically you might be able to, but you'd probably need to rewrite the graphics library in question since right now it's set up for multiple DLLs. I really don't recommend this either; the DLLs are separate because they're meant to be. They offer different functionality (for example, a quick glance at GTK+'s changelog showed mentions of libraries for SVG, JPG, and other file formats, as well as a lot of backend stuff to interface with the host OS, printers, etc.) so they're encapsulated into different libraries. In some cases (libjpeg) these "sub-libraries" are even written by a different group, and the graphics library you're using just calls certain functions from the "sub-library".

If you're really that insistent on having just one DLL, I think you're better off looking for some little, minimal-functionality library. Since you just want 2D graphics you might be able to get away with that.

or having the possibility to organize them in a subfolder of their own would be awesome

Unfortunately you can't do this.