Hi there a.cc....writing this short since I have a little problem when compiling Allegro example ex_audio_chain (as in the thread title).

I'm compiling the allegro library as static monolith with MinGW-w64 gcc, 64 bit flavor.

I get 30 link errors when linking ex_audio_chain.exe regarding freetype.o referring to libpng (I think...I'm using QtCreator and CMAKE, oc);

like this:

C:\MSYS-toolchain\msys2\mingw64\lib\libfreetype.a(sfnt.o):-1: error: undefined 
reference to `png_read_info'

The verbose makefile option shows:

C:\MSYS-toolchain\msys2\mingw64\bin\g++.exe   -msse -W -Wall -Wpointer-arith -g 
-DDEBUGMODE=1 -DD3D_DEBUG_INFO    -mwindows -Wl,--whole-archive 
CMakeFiles\ex_audio_chain.dir/objects.a -Wl,--no-whole-archive  -o 
ex_audio_chain.exe -Wl,--out-implib,libex_audio_chain.dll.a -Wl,--major-image-version,0,
--minor-image-version,0  ..\lib\liballegro_monolith-debug-static.a 
-lkernel32 -luser32 -lgdi32 -lcomdlg32 -lole32 -lwinmm -lpsapi -lshlwapi C:\Windows
\System32\dinput8.dll -lstdc++ -lglu32 -lopengl32 -Wl,-Bstatic -lgdiplus 
-Wl,-Bdynamic -luuid C:\Windows\System32\dsound.dll -lOpenAL32 -Wl,-Bstatic -lFLAC 
-logg -Wl,-Bdynamic -lwsock32 -Wl,-Bstatic -ldumb -lvorbisfile -lvorbis -lfreetype 
-lz -lphysfs -Wl,-Bdynamic -ltheoradec -Wl,-Bstatic -logg -Wl,-Bdynamic -lwsock32 
-Wl,-Bstatic -ldumb -lvorbisfile -lvorbis -lfreetype -lz -lphysfs -Wl,-Bdynamic 
-ltheoradec -lkernel32 -luser32 -lgdi32 -lwinspool -lshell32 -lole32 -loleaut32 
-luuid -lcomdlg32 -ladvapi3

Question: No -lpng option is being passed to the linker, I guess it's okay since my build provides png I/O trough GDIplus?

Also Question: I did not build freetype, I'm using the package that MSYS2 provides....does this mean that I should build static freetype myself? is there a way to pass the IMAGE lib dependencies anyway? (I DO have libpng installed)

EDIT: fixed monospaced text, typos.

EDIT after fiddling

Seems rebuilding freetype myself has cleared things up, now it links flawlessly.

Edit³

Being fiddfling around a bit. The MSYS2 freetype2 packages has these dependencies:

$ pkg-config --libs freetype2
-L/mingw64/lib -lfreetype -lbz2 -lpng16 -lz -lharfbuzz

Due to the fact that is has been build with PNG/BZIP2/HARFBUZZ (?) support and thus requires those.

A better implementation of FindFreetype.cmake could help there (correctly populating ....too bad it has no maintainer on CMAKE ...seriously thou, Freetype #include tricks are sick!

Edit⁴

I came up with a pkg-config based FindFreetype.cmake script which is attached for posterity. This finds correctly the deps and populates FREETYPE_LIBRARIES so that when needed to link against allegro_ttf the aforementioned libs are in there. (this could also remove the need for that ZLIB trick in the ttf addon Cmakelists.txt file...haven't checked thou).

Here's the file