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Building Apache log4cxx with Microsoft Visual Studio

Preparation

unzip apr-1.2.11-win32-src.zip
rename apr-1.2.11 apr
unzip apr-util-1.2.10-win32-src.zip
rename apr-util-1.2.10 apr-util
cd apache-log4cxx-0.10.0
configure
configure-aprutil

configure.bat copies the prefabricated log4cxx.hw and private/log4cxx_private.hw over to log4cxx.h and private/log4cxx_private.h.

configure-aprutil.bat uses "sed" to modify apu.hw and apr_ldap.hw to disable APR-Iconv and LDAP which are not necessary for log4cxx and problematic to build. If "sed" is not available, the modifications would be trivial to do in any text editor.

Use the Win32 source zips for APR and APR-Util to preserve the required line endings for the project files. Directories need to be renamed to "apr" and "apr-util" respectively.

Building log4cxx.dll

Open projects/log4cxx.dsw with Microsoft Visual Studio 6 or later at which time you may be prompted to upgrade the projects to the format used by your version of Microsoft Visual Studio.

Select log4cxx as active project and build.

Running unit tests

To pass the unit tests, gzip, zip and sed must be on the path. Also three environment variables need to be defined: TOTO=wonderful, key1=value1 and key2=value2. These must be done outside of Microsoft Visual Studio, either in the Control Panel or in a Command Prompt uses to launch Microsoft Visual Studio.

Open projects/testsuite.dsw or projects/testsuite-standalone.dsw (test suite and implementation in one project) in Microsoft Visual Studio, select active project and build.

On the Debug Tab of the Project/Settings dialog, set the Working Directory to "../src/test/resources". Individual tests can be specified in Program Arguments and "-v" can be specified to output verbose test results.

Known Issues

  • APR 1.2.12 has a known issue that will prevent compilation with Visual Studio 6 unless a later Platform SDK is installed. See APR bug 44327. APR 1.2.11 and the corresponding APR-Util 1.2.10 will compile with Visual Studio 6.
  • APR-Util requires later LDAP headers than provided with Visual Studio 6 and will fail to compile. log4cxx does not use LDAP, it can be disabled in apr_ldap.hw.
  • APR-Iconv is problematic and not used by log4cxx, it can be disabled in apu.hw.