I want to develop cross-platform programs using C++. I found out that I can easily develop programs for Linux under Windows using remote development in Visual Studio using e.g. WSL. When I searched how to develop programs for Windows under Linux, I found that I can use mingw-w64 to do it. My question is whether the development using mingw-w64 is as good as the development of Windows programs under Windows. What do I mean by "as good as":
absence of errors
no limitation of using libraries
no problems with debugging
etc.
In short, I want the development and most importantly the resulting programs to be the same as in development under Windows.
Globally, I want to choose my main OS for programming: Linux or Windows. I prefer Linux but am afraid that it will somehow limit my ability to program cross-platform solutions. Currently, I'm programming only in Python and didn't have any problems but I'm learning C++ and I want to use it professionally later in life.
UPD: Also, can I use remote development for Windows under Linux? I would be glad to see some articles, videos, tutorials. Because if I search it, Google outputs the results for development for Linux under Windows - it doesn't understand that I need it to be vice versa.
I have around of 4 years experience in C#.Net programming and i am developing a client server application. The server application will be insalled on CentOS and client application will be installed in Windows OS. But, i don't have much knowledge about c++ programming on linux platform. So, my question is that can i create a console application in Windows OS and compile it for linux platform. it is not necessary that compile it on Windows. but, it should be executed in linux platform. I am new in linux programming.
Presently i am using TC++ editor. Can i use Visual Studio 2010 to build server application for linux platform?
if there are another approach then please suggest me.
Thanks.
You can develop the client in C# and the server in C++, if you prefer. Consider that unlike C#, there is no standard socket library yet, and you'll have to rely on either system calls or their higher level wrappers (like boost).
I've to tell you that Windows uses BSD sockets (its own version, with some modifications though), therefore with a few preprocessors checks, you can make your application portable.
In your case, I'd suggest you to go for boost.asio which will hide all low-level stuff for you. It's even cross-platform.
Maybe you can use VS as an editor ; Make sure that you do not include any windows specific libs; There is an option of using cygwin and doing a cross compilation. Check the links
How to cross compile from windows g++ cygwin to get linux executable file
I guess it will be more of a pain. Better use Virtual Box --> linuxMint/Ubuntu + Eclipse with C++ plugin or some other C++ editor...
I have an application written in C++ using wxWidgets. How can I compile it for Linux and Unix os like Debian, FreeBSD, CentOS, in Windows?
Thanks!
Not entirely sure if I understood the question, but I think you are asking if you can compile an application for linux using a compiler in the windows environment.
My short answer: No, but.
The but: You may be able to use Cygwin in windows, however I think there is an easier way. If you are uncomfortable with setting up your computer to have multiple partitions and installing linux on at least one of these partitions, you can use VirtualBox, VMWare, or similar virtualization software to "install" linux on your windows machine. From there you can set up build environments and such. As for how, I would leave your windows build as is, but then in create a Makefile for Linux (or use CMake to replace both your windows-specific builder (the vsproj if using visual studio, etc) and linux-specific builder (make)) so that your source will compile both on windows and linux without having to modify the actual code or project.
i would recommend to use CMake as build system
My team is planning to start development on linux platform. Previously we have been developing C++ applications in Windows using MS Visual Studio. And recently, I fell in love with Mac OSX and use it as my personal development machine.
The question is once again: Is it possible to use Xcode for Linux Development?
The applications we are building are real-time applications, which do not require fancy looking GUIs or advanced user interaction, the focus is on the performance.
As long as you stick to cross-platform interfaces (glibc, POSIX, STL, etc.), sure. You might need a Linux machine to actually build the binaries for Linux though.
I think it is possible since both xcode and linux are using gcc and could use similar development toolkits, and both osx and linux are unix based, therefore you can debug and code on osx, but I think you still need to recompile your apps on deployment O/S ( so make sure you're using portable codes between osx and linux)
I would like to port my C/C++ apps to OS X.
I don't have a Mac, but I have Linux and Windows. Is there any tool for this?
For Linux, there is a prebuilt GCC cross-compiler (from publicly available Apple's modified GCC sources).
https://launchpad.net/~flosoft/+archive/cross-apple
Update for 2015
After so many years, the industry-standard IDE now supports OSX/iOS/Android.
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Connect-event-2014/311
Embarcadero's RadStudio also supports building OSX/iOS/Android apps on Windows.
This answer by Thomas also provides a cross-compilation tool.
For all these options you still need a real mac/i-device to test the application.
I have created a project called OSXCross which aims to target OS X (10.4-10.9) from Linux.
It currently supports clang 3.2 up to 3.8 (trunk) (you can use your dist's clang).
In addition you can build an up-to-date vanilla GCC as well (4.6+).
LTO works as well, for both, clang and GCC.
Currently using cctools-870 with ld64-242.
https://github.com/tpoechtrager/osxcross
There appears to be some scripts that have been written to help get you set up cross compiling for the Mac; I can't say how good they are, or how applicable to your project. In the documentation, they refer to these instructions for cross-compiling for 10.4, and these ones for cross compiling for 10.5; those instructions may be more helpful than the script, depending on how well the script fits your needs.
If your program is free or open source software, then you may wish instead to create a MacPorts portfile (documentation here), and allow your users to build your program using MacPorts; that is generally the preferred way to install portable free or open source software on Mac OS X. MacPorts has been known to run on Linux in the past, so it may be possible to develop and test your Portfile on Linux (though it will obviously need to be tested on a Mac).
Get "VMware Player"
Get "Mac OS X vm image"
Compile/Debug/Integrate-and-test your code on the new OS to make sure everything works
When you are trying to get something working on multiple platforms you absolutely must compile/run/integrate/test on the intended platform. You can not just compile/run on one platform and then say "oh it should work the same on the other platform".
Even with the a really good cross-platform language like Java you will run into problems where it won't work exactly the same on the other platform.
The only way I have found that respects my time/productivity/ability-to-rapidly iterate on multiple platforms is to use a VM of the other platforms.
There are other solutions like dual-boot and ones that I haven't mentioned but I find that they don't respect my productivity/time.
Take dual-booting as an example:
I make a change on OS 1
reboot into OS 2
forget something on OS 1
reboot into OS 1
make a change on OS 1
reboot into OS 2 ... AGAIN...
BAM there goes 30 minutes of my time and I haven't done anything productive.
You would need a toolchain to cross compile for mach-o, but even if you had that, you won't have the Apple libraries around to develop with. I'm not sure how you would be able to port without them, unfortunately.
Apple development is a strange beast unto itself. OS X uses a port of GCC with some modifications to make it 'appley'. In theory, it's possible to the the sources to the Apple GCC and toolchain as well as the Apple kernel and library headers and build a cross compiler on your Windows machine.
Why you'd want to go down this path is beyond me. You can have a cheap Mac mini from $600. The time you invest getting a cross compiler working right (particularly with a Windows host for Unix tools) will probably cost more than the $600 anyway.
If you're really keen to make your app cross platform look into Qt, wxWidgets or FLTK. All provide cross-platform support with minimal changes to the base code. At least that way all you need to do is find a Mac to compile your app on, and that's not too hard to do if you have some technically minded friends who don't mind giving you SSH access to their Mac.
You will definitely need OS X somehow. Even if you don't own a Mac, you can still try some alternatives.
I found this small documentation on the net:
http://devs.openttd.org/~truebrain/compile-farm/apple-darwin9.txt
This describes exactly what you want. I am interested in it myself, haven't tested it yet though (found it 10 minutes ago). The documentation seems good, though.
You can hire a mac in the cloud from this website. You can hire them from $1, which should be enough (unless you need root access, then you are looking at $49+).
There are a few cross-compiler setups, but nearly all of them are meant for distcc-style distributed compiling. To my knowledge there is no way to directly target the Mac platform without actually having a Mac. The closest you can get without resorting to QT or wxWidgets is OpenStep with GNUStep or similar, but that's not a true Cocoa platform, just very close.
I know this question isn’t very active but answering anyways. Why don’t you try using TransMac, then download the XCode image and do it that way? Or you can use a VM, or Sosumi. You’ll find a video on youtube about sosumi, definitely.
The short answer is kind of. You will need to use a cross-platform library like QT. There are IDE's like QT Creator that will let you develop on one OS and generate Makefiles for others. For more information on cross platform development, check out the cross-platform episodes of this podcast (note that the series isn't over and new episodes appear to come out weekly).
As other answers explain you can probably compile for a Mac on Windows or Linux but you won't be able to test your applications so you should probably spend the $600 for a Mac if you’re doing professional programming, or if you’re working on open-source software find a developer with a Mac who will help you.