[xsd-users] PATH in xsd installer

[Boris Kolpackov]

Hi Benjamin,

Benjamin Schindler <bschindler at inf.ethz.ch> writes:

> I just tried out the installer so it can replace our built-in copy of
> dll's, libs etc of xsd. The problem I have is that the installer by
> default sets /codesyntehsispath/bin to PATH and not bin64.
> 
> Our project is 64bit and would not work with this default

The Windows .msi installer has the following layout: The bin/ directory
contains xsd.exe (the XSD compiler itself) which is always a 32-bit
application on Windows plus the 32-bit Xerces-C++ DLLs. The xsd.exe
binary is statically-linked and does not depend on the the Xerces-C++
DLLs. The bin64/ directory contains the 64-bit Xerces-C++ DLLs.

Unfortunately, Windows does not provide good support for having both 
32-bit and 64-bit libraries in the PATH environment variable (i.e.,
there is no PATH64). So in the .msi installer we only add the bin/
directory to PATH.  


> Would there be the possibility to create separate installers for 64bit
> 32bit or could there be some other solution?

Yes, it is possible to create a special version of the installer that
only contains the 64-bit libraries and adds bin64/ instead of bin/ to
PATH. The other option would be to add bin64/ in addition to bin/
to PATH; this way if you don't install any 32-bit libraries the 64-bit
versions will be used automatically. Yet another option would be to
have a GUI element in the installer that allows you to control which
versions of the libraries (32 or 64)  are preferred. I think I like
the last option the best. Would that work for you?

Boris