Windows 11: ld.exe: cannot find -lz: No such file or directory

I have installed a debug version of perl 5.37.6 on Windows 11 using MinGW-w64 and gcc 11.3 from https://winlibs.com/ (using the MSVCRT runtime library), see https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues/20395 for more information on this.

After applying the fix in #88 (or #89) I get the following

>perl Makefile.PL
C:\perl-debug\bin\perl.exe is installed in c:\perl-debug\lib okay
PPM for perl5.037006
Test Compiling config/perlrx.c
Test Compiling config/pmop.c
[...]
Finding dependencies for tkGlue_f.c
Finding dependencies for tkWin32Dll.c
Tests in PNG
Tests in JPEG
Tests in Event
Generating a gmake-style Makefile
Writing Makefile for Tk
Writing MYMETA.yml and MYMETA.json

>gmake
makefile:1022: warning: ignoring old recipe for target 'MANIFEST'
cd pTk && gmake DEFINE="" LIBPERL_A="libperl.a" LINKTYPE="dynamic" OPTIMIZE="-ggdb -O0" PREFIX="c:\perl-debug\site" PASTHRU_DEFINE=" " PASTHRU_INC="-I. -I./pTk/mTk/xlib "
gmake[1]: Entering directory 'C:/Users/hakon/perl/github/perl-tk/pTk'
gcc -c -I. -I./pTk/mTk/xlib  -I.. -I.. -I../pTk/mTk/xlib -I. -Ibitmaps -I.. -I../pTk/mTk/xlib -DWIN32 -DWIN64 -DDEBUGGING -DPERL_TEXTMODE_SCRIPTS -DMULTIPLICITY -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SYS -DUSE_PERLIO -D__USE_MINGW_ANSI_STDIO -fwrapv -fno-strict-aliasing -mms-bitfields -DPERLDLL -ggdb -O0   -DVERSION=\"804.036\" -DXS_VERSION=\"804.036\"  "-IC:\perl-debug\lib\CORE"    imgInt_f.c
gcc -c -I. -I./pTk/mTk/xlib  -I.. -I.. -I../pTk/mTk/xlib -I. -Ibitmaps -I.. -I../pTk/mTk/xlib -DWIN32 -DWIN64 -DDEBUGGING -DPERL_TEXTMODE_SCRIPTS -DMULTIPLICITY -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SYS -DUSE_PERLIO -D__USE_MINGW_ANSI_STDIO -fwrapv -fno-strict-aliasing -mms-bitfields -DPERLDLL -ggdb -O0   -DVERSION=\"804.036\" -DXS_VERSION=\"804.036\"  "-IC:\perl-debug\lib\CORE"    imgObj.c
gcc -c -I. -I./pTk/mTk/xlib  -I.. -I.. -I../pTk/mTk/xlib -I. -Ibitmaps -I.. -I../pTk/mTk/xlib -DWIN32 -DWIN64 -DDEBUGGING -DPERL_TEXTMODE_SCRIPTS -DMULTIPLICITY -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SYS -DUSE_PERLIO -D__USE_MINGW_ANSI_STDIO -fwrapv -fno-strict-aliasing -mms-bitfields -DPERLDLL -ggdb -O0   -DVERSION=\"804.036\" -DXS_VERSION=\"804.036\"  "-IC:\perl-debug\lib\CORE"    imgUtil.c
[...]
gmake[1]: Entering directory 'C:/Users/hakon/perl/github/perl-tk/PNG'
cp PNG.pm ..\blib\lib\Tk\PNG.pm
cd zlib && gmake libz.a "CC=gcc  "
gmake[2]: Entering directory 'C:/Users/hakon/perl/github/perl-tk/PNG/zlib'
gmake[2]: 'libz.a' is up to date.
gmake[2]: Leaving directory 'C:/Users/hakon/perl/github/perl-tk/PNG/zlib'
gmake[2]: Entering directory 'C:/Users/hakon/perl/github/perl-tk/PNG/libpng'
Makefile:45: You haven't specified a 'prefix=' location. Defaulting to "/usr"
gcc   -static -Wall -O3 -funroll-loops -fomit-frame-pointer  pngtest.o -L. -lpng -L/usr/lib -lz -o pngtest-stat.exe
c:/winlibs64-gcc11.3-msvcrt/mingw64/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/11.3.0/../../../../x86_64-w64-mingw32/bin/ld.exe: cannot find 
-lz: No such file or directory
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status
gmake[2]: *** [Makefile:187: pngtest-stat.exe] Error 1
gmake[2]: Leaving directory 'C:/Users/hakon/perl/github/perl-tk/PNG/libpng'
gmake[1]: *** [Makefile:515: subdirs] Error 2
gmake[1]: Leaving directory 'C:/Users/hakon/perl/github/perl-tk/PNG'
gmake: *** [makefile:762: subdirs] Error 2

The complete log files: perl-makefile-log.txt, and gmake.log.txt

I checked that libz.a exists:

>dir PNG\zlib\libz.a
 Volume in drive C is OS
 Volume Serial Number is 0A36-53BF

 Directory of C:\Users\hakon\perl\github\perl-tk\PNG\zlib

25/10/2022  14:06           102,406 libz.a
               1 File(s)        102,406 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  136,013,594,624 bytes free

Note that the command that fails is this:

gcc   -static -Wall -O3 -funroll-loops -fomit-frame-pointer  pngtest.o -L. -lpng -L/usr/lib -lz -o pngtest-stat.exe

which is run from directory PNG\libpng. Notice that the command uses -L/usr/lib (which does not exist on Windows). It should have used something like -L../zlib, right?

eserte / perl-tk

Windows 11: ld.exe: cannot find -lz: No such file or directory #90