windres

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windres

windres may be used to manipulate Windows resources.

Warning:

windres is not always built as part of the binary utilities, since it is only useful for Windows targets.

windres [ options ] [ input-file ] [ output-file ]

windres reads resources from an input-file and copies them into an output-file. Either file may be in one of three formats:

rc

A text format read by the Resource Compiler.

res

A binary format generated by the Resource Compiler.

coff

A COFF object or executable.

The exact description of these different formats is available in documentation from Microsoft.

When windres converts from the rc format to the res format, it is acting like the Windows Resource Compiler. When windres converts from the res format to the coff format, it is acting like the Windows CVTRES program.

When windres generates an rc file, the output is similar but not identical to the format expected for the input. When an input rc file refers to an external filename, an output rc file will instead include the file contents.

If the input or output format is not specified, windres will guess based on the file name, or, for the input file, the file contents. A file with an extension of .rc will be treated as an rc file, a file with an extension of .res will be treated as a res file, and a file with an extension of .o or .exe will be treated as a COFF format file.

If no output file is specified, windres will print the resources in rc format to standard output.

The normal use is for you to write an rc file, use windres to convert it to a COFF file, and then link the COFF file into your application.

This will make the resources described in the rc file available to Windows.

-i filename

--input filename

The name of the input file. If this option is not used, then windres will use the first non-option argument as the input, filename. If there are no non-option arguments, then windres will read from standard input. windres can not read a COFF file from standard input.

-o filename

--output filename

The name of the output file. If this option is not used, then windres will use the first non-option argument, after any used for the input, filename, as the output, filename. If there is no non-option argument, then windres will write to standard output. windres can not write a COFF file to standard output.

-I format

--input-format format

The input format to read. format may be res, rc, or cof. If no input format is specified, windres will guess.

-O format

--output-format format

The output format to generate. format may be res, rc, or coff. If no output format is specified, windres will guess.

-F target

--target target

Specify the BFD format to use for a COFF file as input or output. This is a BFD target name; you can use the --help option to see a list of supported targets. Normally windres will use the default format, which is the first one listed by the --help option.

--preprocessor program

When windres reads an rc file, it runs it through the C preprocessor first. This option may be used to specify the preprocessor to use, including any leading arguments. The default preprocessor argument uses the following commands and arguments:

gcc -E -xc-header DRC_INVOKED.

--include-dirdirectory

Specify an include directory to use when reading an rc file.

windres will pass this to the preprocessor as an -I option.

windres will also search this directory when looking for files named in the rc file.

--define sym[= val ]

Specify a -D option to pass to the preprocessor when reading an rc file.

--language val

Specify the default language to use when reading an rc file.

val should be a hexadecimal language code. The low eight bits are the language, and the high eight bits are the sub-language.

--help

Prints a usage summary.

--version

Prints the version number for windres.

--yydebug

If windres is compiled with YYDEBUG defined as 1, this will turn on parser debugging.

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