From: Tim Hunter <sastph@...>
Date: 2006-10-07T00:50:17+09:00
Subject: Re: tabs and parse errors with Ruby 1.8.4 and Windows

ara.t.howard@noaa.gov wrote:
> On Fri, 6 Oct 2006, Timothy Hunter wrote:
> 
>> You don't say what version of RMagick you're using but I'm assuming 
>> it's 1.9.2. There was a problem having this symptom when using RMagick 
>> 1.9.2 with Ruby 1.8.4 because RMagick was compiled using a different 
>> compiler than Ruby. The rmagick-win32 gem, version 1.13.0, is 
>> compatible with Ruby 1.8.4. There is also a version of the 
>> rmagick-win32 gem for Ruby 1.8.5. Both are available from RubyForge: 
>> http://rmagick.rubyforge.org.
> 
> can you elaborate tim?
> 
> -a

Of course, Ara.

Kaspar Schiess, the RMagick Win32 guru, compiled RMagick 1.9.2 for Ruby 
1.8.2 using mingw. This worked fine since the 1-click installer for Ruby 
1.8.2 was compiled with VC++2003 (iirc, I don't know much about MS 
compiler versions). Curt switched to VC6 (VC++2005?) for the Ruby 1.8.4 
1-click installer. The binaries produced by mingw are not compatible 
with the VC6 binaries, so as soon as RMagick users (mostly Rails folks) 
switched to Ruby 1.8.4 they started having problems. Usually the 
problems had the symptom described in this thread.

Brett DiFrischia, RMagick's new Win32 ninja, compiled the RMagick 1.13.0 
gem for Windows using a compiler that is compatible with the 1.8.4 
1-click installer. I think he posted the details on this list, if not 
I'm sure he'd be happy to explain.

There was a lot of discussion on this list about which compiler to use 
for the 1-click installer a couple of months ago. The decision directly 
affects all binary extensions for Windows. I'm pulling for mingw since 
it's free (as in FOSS). There are also good arguments for an MS 
compiler. I don't think Curt's made a decision yet.