WIDL(1)

💅 WIDL(1) — the Wine Developers Manual, but make it cute

okay so bestie, welcome to widl, the Wine Interface Definition Language (IDL) compiler 🍓. This is from the Wine Developers Manual, and honestly? she's iconic. Let's get into it.

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

x86_64-w64-mingw32-widl [options] IDL_file
x86_64-w64-mingw32-widl [options] --dlldata-only name1 [name2...]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So here's the vibe. When you run this with no options at all, widl is gonna generate a header file — and possibly client and server stubs, proxy and dlldata files, a typelib, and a UUID file too. All of that depends on what's actually inside your IDL file, okay? She reads the room. 💖

But the second you pass any of -c, -h, -p, -s, -t, -u or --local-stubs, she switches up: widl will only generate the files you asked for, and no others. No extras, no surprises. periodt.

Then there's --dlldata-only, and with that one widl will only generate a dlldata file, and it's gonna contain a list of the names you passed as arguments. The usual way this file gets updated: every time widl is run, it reads whatever dlldata file already exists, and if it needs to, it regenerates it with the same list of names — except now the present proxy file is included in there too. 🦋

And if you run her with zero arguments? She just prints a help message. She's helpful like that, no cap.

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

General options (the basics, bestie)

• -V — Print the version number and dip. That's it, that's the whole job. ✌️
• -o, --output=name — Sets the name of the output file. Now listen: when multiple output files are being generated, this only sets the base name, and then the respective output files get named name.h, name_p.c, etc. So don't be confused when you see a whole little family of files. 🌈
• -b cpu-manufacturer[-kernel]-os — Set the target architecture when cross-compiling. The target spec is in the standard autoconf format, exactly like what config.sub returns. iykyk.

Header options

• -h — Generate header files. The default output filename is infile.h. 🎀
• --oldnames — Use old naming conventions. Throwback energy, honestly.

Type library options

• -t — Generate a type library. Default output filename is infile.tlb. But heads up: if the output file name ends in .res, then a binary resource file containing the type library gets generated instead. Plot twist. 💀
• -m32, -m64 — Generate a Win32 or Win64 type library respectively. Pick your fighter.

UUID file options

• -u — Generate a UUID file. The default output filename is infile_i.c. ⭐

Proxy/stub generation options

• -c — Generate a client stub file. Default output filename is infile_c.c.
• -Os — Generate inline stubs.
• -Oi — Generate old-style interpreted stubs.
• -Oif, -Oic, -Oicf — Generate new-style fully interpreted stubs.
• -p — Generate a proxy. The default output filename is infile_p.c.
• --prefix-all=prefix — Prefix to put on the name of both client and server stubs. Two for one, slay.
• --prefix-client=prefix — Prefix to put on the name of client stubs.
• --prefix-server=prefix — Prefix to put on the name of server stubs.
• -s — Generate a server stub file. The default output filename is infile_s.c.
• --win32, --win64 — Only generate 32-bit or 64-bit code respectively. And ngl, the default here is to generate both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions into the same destination file. So if you're wondering why your file is doing the most, that's why. 🙈
• --rt — Enable additional language extensions for IDL to support WinRT. Fancy.

Registration script options

• -r — Generate a registration script. Default output filename is infile_r.rgs. But again, watch out: if the output file name ends in .res, then a binary resource file containing the script is generated instead. 🧚

Dlldata file options

• --dlldata-only name1 [name2...] — Regenerate the dlldata file from scratch using the specified proxy names. The default output filename is dlldata.c.

Preprocessor options

• -I path — Add a header search directory to path. And you can stack these — multiple search directories are allowed. 🫶
• -D id[=val] — Define preprocessor macro id with value val.
• -E — Preprocess only. Nothing more, nothing less.
• -N — Do not preprocess input. She trusts you.

Debug options

• -W — Enable pedantic warnings. She will be in your business, but lovingly.
• -d n — Set debug level to the non-negative integer n. If it's prefixed with 0x, it gets interpreted as a hexadecimal number. For what all those values actually mean, go look at the DEBUG section down below. 👇

Miscellaneous options

• -app_config — Ignored, present for midl compatibility. She's just here for the vibes, standing in the corner, not doing anything. 💀
• --local-stubs=file — Generate empty stubs for call_as/local methods in an object interface and write them to file.

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🔥 DEBUG 🔥

Debug level n is a bitmask, and here's the whole breakdown:

• 0x01 — Tell which resource is parsed (verbose mode)
• 0x02 — Dump internal structures
• 0x04 — Create a parser trace (yydebug=1)
• 0x08 — Preprocessor messages
• 0x10 — Preprocessor lex messages
• 0x20 — Preprocessor yacc trace

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💀 BUGS 💀

Bugs can be reported on the Wine bug tracker. If you found one, tell on her — she can take it, she wants to grow. 😭

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💜 AUTHORS 💜

widl was originally written by Ove Kåven. It has been improved by Rob Shearman, Dan Hipschman, and others. For a complete list, see the git commit logs. This man page was originally written by Hannu Valtonen and then updated by Dan Hipschman. Give them their flowers. 💐

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🌈 AVAILABILITY 🌈

widl is part of the Wine distribution, which is available through WineHQ, the Wine development headquarters.

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

Wine documentation and support.

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okay that's the whole page, you're all caught up bestie 💖 this cutie comes to you from MinGW-w64, dated October 2007 — yes she's an elder but she ate and left no crumbs. go compile something iconic, mwah 🎀✨