I'm a coder with a significant amount of experience, however the one area that I literally know nothing about is linking libraries. I have been trying to set allegro up in Code Blocks and mingw and I am drawing blanks. Ive been searching for guides and many of them say I need to build allegro. Is that really necessary? I would think there was a pre-compiled version to use. Another site said that I needed subversion at which point I quickly clicked my back button, as I cant see how source control has anything to do with it...

To get to the point, I don't want a step by step guide to setting up Allegro. What I really need is a good resource to start learning about linking libraries in general so I can do it myself in the future without having to ask for help. Any recommendations are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

P.S. Is Allegro 5 stable? I couldn't find information on whether I should start with 5 or just stick with 4 right now.

I suppose the trouble I have is locating good documentation for individual libraries then. The version of Allegro 5 I downloaded had no documentation...

Use version 5 RC2.

The files page here will have appropriate build / setup documentation by the time version 5.0.0 is out. Until then you'll need to look up the wiki for info or read the installation instructions that come with the source.

The API manual is online.

http://www.allegro5.org has A5 binaries.

Surprise! I'm back again. I successfully got Allegro 4 working. I am now trying to set up allegro 5 though and have run into a problem. I downloaded Allegro 5.0.0 for Mingw 4.4.0. I linked in the same way as allegro 4 was linked (lib and include folders) and used liballegro_main-5.0.0-RC2-md.a It seems to recognize the include file alright, but once I compile the following code, I get errors. Ive already spent the last couple hours searching around for any indication of what I may have done wrong.

[code]
#include <stdio.h>
#include <allegro5/allegro.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
ALLEGRO_DISPLAY *display = NULL;

if(!al_init()) {
fprintf(stderr, "failed to initialize allegro!\n");
return -1;
}

display = al_create_display(640, 480);
if(!display) {
fprintf(stderr, "failed to create display!\n");
return -1;
}

al_clear_to_color(al_map_rgb(0,0,0));

al_flip_display();

al_rest(10.0);

al_destroy_display(display);

return 0;
}
[/code]

obj\Release\main.o:main.cpp|| undefined reference to `al_install_system'|
obj\Release\main.o:main.cpp|| undefined reference to `al_create_display'|
obj\Release\main.o:main.cpp|| undefined reference to `al_map_rgb'|
obj\Release\main.o:main.cpp|| undefined reference to `al_clear_to_color'|
obj\Release\main.o:main.cpp|| undefined reference to `al_flip_display'|
obj\Release\main.o:main.cpp|| undefined reference to `al_rest'|
obj\Release\main.o:main.cpp|| undefined reference to `al_destroy_display'|
||=== Build finished: 7 errors, 0 warnings ===|

I also attempted to compile a much simpler program, only calling al_init to minimize potential problems. Same issue though.

After adding that I ended up getting an error saying that libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll was missing from my system. I suppose its a dependency of allegro 5. Anyways, I just downloaded the dll from a 3rd party site and copied it to my mingw folder. Allegro 5 seems to be working now.

Thanks again for all the help.

By the way, how do you link code on the forums? I thought the old tag was [code][/code] but i guess thats wrong

Nope. Its a dependency of GCC itself. You can skip that by adding -static-libgcc to your linking options.

Offtopic, but this is the first I've seen this site having A5 binaries. I'm going to lay allegro5.org to rest now. I'll make a backup for what it's worth and alias it to http://alleg.sf.net.