Building MariaDB on Windows

Build Requirements

To build MariaDB you need the following:

• Visual C++: We currently support Visual Studio 2019 and 2022. Generally we try to support the two most recent VS versions, but build ourselves using the last one. Community editions will work fine; we only use them in our builds. While installing Visual Studio, make sure to add "Desktop Development with C++".

• CMake: We recommend the latest release. Older releases might not support your version of Visual Studio. Visual Studio 2019 requires cmake 3.14 at least.

• Git: Required to build newer versions from the source tree.
  • NOTE: run

git config --global core.autocrlf input

after the installation, otherwise some mtr tests will fail

In the "Adjusting your PATH" dialog, choose "Use Git from Windows command prompt", otherwise wrong (mingw64) git and perl will be in your PATH

• Bison from GnuWin32: Bison creates parts of the SQL parser. Choose "Complete package except sources" when downloading.
  • NOTE: Do not install this into your default path with spaces (e.g. under C:\Program Files\GnuWin32); the build will break due to this bison bug. Instead, install into C:\GnuWin32.
  • Add C:\GnuWin32\bin to your system PATH after installation.
• Strawberry perl: Used to run the test suite. ActiveState Perl is another Win32 Perl distribution and should work as well (but it is not as well tested). NOTE: Cygwin or mingw Perl versions will not work for testing. Use Windows native Perl, please.
• Optional: If you intend to build the MSI packages, install Windows Installer XML . If you build MSI with 10.4, also modify your Visual Studio installation, add "Redistributable MSMs" (see MDEV-22555)

• Gnu Diff, needed if you run mysql-test-run.pl tests.

Verify that bison.exe, or git.exe, cmake.exe and perl.exe can be found in the PATH environment variable with "where bison", "where git", "where perl" etc. from the command line prompt.

Building Windows Binaries

The above instructions assume MariaDB 10.2 or higher.

Branch the MariaDB repository, or unpack the source archive. On the command prompt, switch to your source directory, then execute:

mkdir bld
cd bld
cmake ..
cmake --build . --config RelWithDebInfo

The above example builds a release configured for 64 bit systems in a subdirectory named bld. "cmake ..." is the configuration step, "cmake --build . --config Relwithdebinfo" is the build step.

Build Variations

Debug Builds

Building Debug version is done with:

cmake --build . --config Debug

32bit and 64 bit Builds

Build 64 bit binary

Visual Studio 2019-2022 cmake generator will use host architecture by default, that is, with the steps above, cmake will build x64 binaries on x64 machine.

Build 32 bit binary

pass -A Win32 parameter for CMake, like this

cmake .. -A Win32

Historical note: With Visual Studio 2017 and earlier, one had to pass the name of 32bit generator ,e.g cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 15 2017"

For a complete list of available generators, call "cmake" without any parameters.

IDE Builds

Instead of calling "cmake --build" as above, open solution file MariaDB.sln (in older versions, prior to 11.0, MySQL.sln ). When Visual Studio starts, choose Build/Compile.

Building the ZIP Package

cmake --build . --config relwithdebinfo --target package

This is how it is "done by the book", standard cmake target.

MariaDB however uses non-standard target "win_package" for the packaging for its releases, it generates 2 ZIPs, a slim one with executables, and another one with debuginfo (.PDB files). The debuginfo is important to be able to debug released binaries, and to analyze crashes.

cmake --build . --config relwithdebinfo --target win_package

Building the MSI Package

cmake --build . --config relwithdebinfo 
cmake --build . --config relwithdebinfo --target MSI

Including HeidiSQL in the MSI Installer

Starting with MariaDB 5.2.7, it is possible to build an installer which includes 3rd party products, as described in MWL#200. Currently only HeidiSQL support is implemented; it is also included in the official builds. Use the CMake parameter -DWITH_THIRD_PARTY=HeidiSQL to include it in the installer.

Code Signing

MariaDB builds optionally support authenticode code signing with an optional parameter SIGNCODE. Use cmake -DSIGNCODE=1 during the configuration step to sign the binaries in the ZIP and MSI packages.

Important: for SIGNCODE=1 to work, the user that runs the build needs to install a valid authenticode digital certificate into their certificate store, otherwise the packaging step will fail.

Building Packages for MariaDB Releases

The full script to create the release in an out-of-source build with Visual Studio with signed binaries might look like:

mkdir bld
cd bld
cmake .. -DSIGNCODE=1 -DWITH_THIRD_PARTY=HeidiSQL
cmake --build . --config relwithdebinfo --target win_package
cmake --build . --config relwithdebinfo  --target MSI

This command sequence will produce a ZIP package (e.g mariadb-5.2.6-win32.zip) and MSI package (e.g mariadb-5.2.6-win32.msi) in the bld directory.

Running Tests

• Important: Do not use Cygwin bash, MinGW bash, Git bash, WSL bash, or any other bash when running the test suite. You will then very likely use the wrong version of Perl too (a "Unix-flavoured" one on Windows), and spend a lot of time trying to figure out why this version of Perl does not work for the test suite. Use native perl, in cmd.exe , or powershell instead,

• Switch mysql-test subdirectory of the build directory

cd C:\server\bld\mysql-test

• Run the test suite

perl mysql-test-run.pl --suite=main --parallel=auto

Running a Test Under Debugger

Assuming VS is installed on the machine

perl mysql-test-run.pl  <test_name> --vsjitdebugger

If vsjitdebugger does not start, you can edit AeDebug registry key as mentioned in

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/debugger/debug-using-the-just-in-time-debugger?view=vs-2019#jit_errors

Alternatively:

perl mysql-test-run.pl  <test_name> --devenv 

(devenv.exe needs to be in PATH)

or, if you prefer WinDBG

perl mysql-test-run.pl  <test_name> --windbg