Using zlib under windows mingw

Question

I can't seem to get zlib to do anything on mingw under windows.

I downloaded zlib @ http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files_beta/MinGW/zlib/zlib-1.2.3-1-mingw32/ and put the header and lib files in the right place.

Simple code like:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

#include "zlib.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    long a;
    char buffer[1024];
    a = 1024;
    compress(buffer,&a,"testing",7);
    return 0;
}

compiled:

gcc test.c -lzlib -Wall -o test.exe

Compiles fine. However the exe crashes at the compress function. Any ideas?

Answer 1

I recommend using MSYS2 for this kind of thing. These instructions assume you want to compile a 64-bit program, but they can easily be modified for 32-bit.

After installing MSYS2, run the "MinGW-w64 Win64 Shell" shortcut in your Start Menu. Install the 64-bit toolchain by running:

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib

Then compile your code by running something like this:

gcc test.c -lz -o test

I did not check your code carefully, but I was able to run your code without any crashing, so your code might be OK. Your code also gives no output so it's hard to tell if it really worked.