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doc/distribution/windows.md

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Windows

Ruby supports a few native build platforms for Windows.

  • mswin: Build using Microsoft Visual C++ compiler with vcruntimeXXX.dll
  • mingw-msvcrt: Build using compiler for Mingw with msvcrtXX.dll
  • mingw-ucrt: Build using compiler for Mingw with Windows Universal CRT

Building Ruby using Mingw with UCRT

The easiest build environment is just a standard RubyInstaller-Devkit installation and git-for-windows. You might like to use VSCode as an editor.

Build examples

Ruby core development can be done either in Windows cmd like:

batch
ridk install
ridk enable ucrt64

pacman -S --needed %MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX%-openssl %MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX%-libyaml %MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX%-libffi

mkdir c:\work\ruby
cd /d c:\work\ruby

git clone https://github.com/ruby/ruby src

sh ./src/autogen.sh

mkdir build
cd build
sh ../src/configure -C --disable-install-doc
make

or in MSYS2 bash like:

bash
ridk install
ridk enable ucrt64
bash

pacman -S --needed $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-openssl $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-libyaml $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX-libffi

mkdir /c/work/ruby
cd /c/work/ruby

git clone https://github.com/ruby/ruby src

./src/autogen.sh
cd build
../src/configure -C --disable-install-doc
make

If you have other MSYS2 environment via other package manager like scoop, you need to specify $MINGW_PACKAGE_PREFIX is mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64. And you need to add --with-opt-dir option to configure command like:

batch
sh ../../ruby/configure -C --disable-install-doc --with-opt-dir=C:\Users\username\scoop\apps\msys2\current\ucrt64

Building Ruby using Visual C++

Requirement

  1. Windows 10/Windows Server 2016 or later.

  2. Visual C++ 14.0 (2015) or later.

    Note if you want to build x64 version, use native compiler for x64.

    The minimum requirement is here:

    • VC++/MSVC on VS 2017/2019/2022 version build tools.
    • Windows 10/11 SDK

    You can install Visual Studio Build Tools with winget. win32\install-buildtools.cmd is a batch file to install the minimum requirements excluding the IDE etc.

  3. Please set environment variable INCLUDE, LIB, PATH to run required commands properly from the command line. These are set properly by vsdevcmd.bat or vcvarall*.bat usually. You can run the following command to set them in your command line.

    To native build:

    cmd /k win32\vssetup.cmd

    To cross build arm64 binary:

    cmd /k win32\vssetup.cmd -arch=arm64

    To cross build x64 binary:

    cmd /k win32\vssetup.cmd -arch=x64

    This batch file is a wrapper of vsdevcmd.bat and options are passed to it as-is. win32\vssetup.cmd -help for other command line options.

    Note building ruby requires following commands.

    • nmake
    • cl
    • ml
    • lib
    • dumpbin

  4. If you want to build from GIT source, following commands are required.

    • git
    • ruby 3.1 or later

    You can use scoop to install them like:

    batch
    scoop install git ruby

    The windows version of git configured with autocrlf is true. The Ruby test suite may fail with autocrlf set to true. You can set it to false like:

    batch
    git config --global core.autocrlf false

  5. You need to install required libraries using vcpkg on directory of ruby repository like:

    batch
    vcpkg --triplet x64-windows install

  6. Enable Command Extension of your command line. It's the default behavior of cmd.exe. If you want to enable it explicitly, run cmd.exe with /E:ON option.

How to compile and install

  1. Execute win32\configure.bat on your build directory. You can specify the target platform as an argument. For example, run configure --target=i686-mswin32. You can also specify the install directory. For example, run configure --prefix=<install_directory>. Default of the install directory is /usr .

  2. If you want to append to the executable and DLL file names, specify --program-prefix and --program-suffix, like win32\configure.bat --program-suffix=-$(MAJOR)$(MINOR).

    Also, the --install-name and --so-name options specify the exact base names of the executable and DLL files, respectively, like win32\configure.bat --install-name=$(RUBY_BASE_NAME)-$(MAJOR)$(MINOR).

    By default, the name for the executable without a console window is generated from the RUBY_INSTALL_NAME specified as above by replacing ruby with rubyw. If you want to make it different more, modify RUBYW_INSTALL_NAME directly in the Makefile.

  3. You need specify vcpkg directory to use --with-opt-dir option like win32\configure.bat --with-opt-dir=C:/vcpkg_installed/x64-windows

  4. Run nmake up if you are building from GIT source.

  5. Run nmake

  6. Run nmake prepare-vcpkg with administrator privilege if you need to copy vcpkg installed libraries like libssl-3-x64.dll to the build directory.

  7. Run nmake check

  8. Run nmake install

Build examples

  • Build on the ruby source directory.

    ruby source directory:  C:\ruby
build directory:        C:\ruby
install directory:      C:\usr\local
    batch
    C:
cd \ruby
win32\configure --prefix=/usr/local
nmake
nmake check
nmake install

  • Build on the relative directory from the ruby source directory.

    ruby source directory:  C:\ruby
build directory:        C:\ruby\mswin32
install directory:      C:\usr\local
    batch
    C:
cd \ruby
mkdir mswin32
cd mswin32
..\win32\configure --prefix=/usr/local
nmake
nmake check
nmake install

  • Build on the different drive.

    ruby source directory:  C:\src\ruby
build directory:        D:\build\ruby
install directory:      C:\usr\local
    batch
    D:
cd D:\build\ruby
C:\src\ruby\win32\configure --prefix=/usr/local
nmake
nmake check
nmake install DESTDIR=C:

  • Build x64 version (requires native x64 VC++ compiler)

    ruby source directory:  C:\ruby
build directory:        C:\ruby
install directory:      C:\usr\local
    batch
    C:
cd \ruby
win32\configure --prefix=/usr/local --target=x64-mswin64
nmake
nmake check
nmake install

Bugs

You can NOT use a path name that contains any white space characters as the ruby source directory, this restriction comes from the behavior of !INCLUDE directives of NMAKE.

You can build ruby in any directory including the source directory, except win32 directory in the source directory. This is restriction originating in the path search method of NMAKE.

Dependency management

Ruby uses vcpkg to manage dependencies on mswin platform.

You can update and install it under the build directory like:

batch
nmake update-vcpkg # Update baseline version of vcpkg
nmake install-vcpkg # Install vcpkg from build directory

Icons

Any icon files(*.ico) in the build directory, directories specified with icondirs make variable and win32 directory under the ruby source directory will be included in DLL or executable files, according to their base names.

$(RUBY_INSTALL_NAME).ico or ruby.ico   --> $(RUBY_INSTALL_NAME).exe
$(RUBYW_INSTALL_NAME).ico or rubyw.ico --> $(RUBYW_INSTALL_NAME).exe
the others                             --> $(RUBY_SO_NAME).dll

Although no icons are distributed with the ruby source, you can use anything you like. You will be able to find many images by search engines. For example, followings are made from Ruby logo kit: