pcsc_scan on Windows

Since version 1.5.0 of pcsc-tools (see "New version of pcsc-tools: 1.5.0, 1.5.1, 1.5.2") it is possible to build and run pcsc_scan on Windows.

MSYS2

From the project webpage:

MSYS2 is a software distro and building platform for Windows

At its core is an independent rewrite of MSYS, based on modern Cygwin (POSIX compatibility layer) and MinGW-w64 with the aim of better interoperability with native Windows software. It provides a bash shell, Autotools, revision control systems and the like for building native Windows applications using MinGW-w64 toolchains.

It features a package management system to provide easy installation of packages, Pacman. It brings many powerful features such as dependency resolution and simple complete system upgrades, as well as straight-forward package building.

Using MSYS2 it is easy to build/port a Unix program on Windows.

Build

To build the program use the classic sequence:

1. ./configure
2. make

$ ./configure
configure: loading site script /etc/config.site
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /usr/bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether make supports nested variables... yes
checking whether make supports nested variables... (cached) yes
checking build system type... x86_64-pc-msys
checking host system type... x86_64-pc-msys
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.exe
checking for suffix of executables... .exe
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
checking whether gcc understands -c and -o together... yes
checking for style of include used by make... GNU
checking dependency style of gcc... gcc3
checking for pkg-config... /usr/bin/pkg-config
checking pkg-config is at least version 0.9.0... yes
configure: WARNING: libpcsclite not found by pkg-config
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /usr/bin/grep
checking for egrep... /usr/bin/grep -E
checking for ANSI C header files... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for memory.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking winscard.h usability... yes
checking winscard.h presence... yes
checking for winscard.h... yes
checking for SCardEstablishContext... yes
checking for ANSI C header files... (cached) yes
checking for unistd.h... (cached) yes
checking time.h usability... yes
checking time.h presence... yes
checking for time.h... yes
checking for string.h... (cached) yes
checking stdio.h usability... yes
checking stdio.h presence... yes
checking for stdio.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... (cached) yes
checking sys/time.h usability... yes
checking sys/time.h presence... yes
checking for sys/time.h... yes
checking whether sys/types.h defines makedev... yes
checking that generated files are newer than configure... done
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating config.h
config.status: executing depfiles commands

Windows does not use pcsc-lite but its own natice WinSCard implementation. So it is not surprising that libpcsclite is not found by the configure script. What is important is that the header file winscard.h is found and that the function SCardEstablishContext() can be used.

$ make
make  all-am
make[1] : on entre dans le répertoire « /home/Ludovic/pcsc-tools »
  CC       pcsc_scan-pcsc_scan.o
  CCLD     pcsc_scan.exe
make[1] : on quitte le répertoire « /home/Ludovic/pcsc-tools »

Run

$ ./pcsc_scan.exe
PC/SC device scanner
V 1.5.2 (c) 2001-2017, Ludovic Rousseau 
Using reader plug'n play mechanism
Scanning present readers...
0: Broadcom Corp Contacted SmartCard 0
1: Broadcom Corp Contactless SmartCard 0
 
Tue May 30 18:04:07 2017
 Reader 0: Broadcom Corp Contacted SmartCard 0
  Card state: Card removed, 
 Reader 1: Broadcom Corp Contactless SmartCard 0
  Card state: Card removed, 
 Reader 2: \\?PnP?\Notification
  Card state: 

Limitations

The program has some limitations:

• the special reader name \\?PnP?\Notification, used for reader hotplug events, has its name listed.
  This is not the case on GNU/Linux or macOS.
• the program does not exit when the key sequence Ctrl-C is used. On Unix the Control-C sequence is used to send a SIGINT signal to the process. On Windows I do not know an equivalent.
  To quit pcsc_scan you have to terminate the process using the task manager. Not really a good User eXperience.

Conclusion

I do not plan to put a lot of effort into the Windows version of pcsc_scan. It was just an experiment.

If you want a change you can submit a Pull Request at the pcsc-tools github project.