How to build and run on Windows

The goal is to have a lightweight working SDL2 dev environment under windows. It will use g++ builder and the ucrt64 flavor of SDL. They both are available in the msys2 tool chain and can be easily install with minimal effort.

Required:

• msys64 [https://www.msys2.org/]
• VScode [https://code.visualstudio.com/]

Procedure

1. Install msys2 (I use the default location from here: "C:/msys64") and launch msys64.exe
2. Use pacman in msys64 terminal to get the required build tools and SDL:

pacman -S --needed base-devel mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain

pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-SDL2

3. Add msys2 bin location to your User Environment Path:

C:/msys64/ucrt64/bin

4. Install VScode
5. Install c/c++ extension pack within VScode

Usage

In order to make VScode use the project build & launch settings you have to excplicitely open the project folder in VScode.

Make sure the following are setup like this:

• c_cpp_properties.json (generated by c/c++ extension)

Add to include path:

"C:/msys64/ucrt64/include/"

Set "compilerPath":

"C:/msys64/ucrt64/bin/g++.exe"

• tasks.json (generated after trying to build with VScode)

Set "command":

"C:/msys64/ucrt64/bin/g++.exe"

Add after -o in "args":

"-lSDL2"

"-lSDL2main"

• launch.json (generated after first "run & debug (ctrl+shift+D)")

Set "miDebuggerPath":

"C:/msys64/ucrt64/bin/gdb.exe"