I'm trying to create a cross-platform application that is using client applications written in C for MariaDB. But MariaDB offers a different library for each operating system and architecture for each of these. I need to know if there is a way to set up a C++ project for when you compile on Windows then take Windows libraries and when I compile on Linux then take the Linux ones.
On linux you'll want to use the distribution's repository's mariadb, on Windows, you'll need to compile it yourself or ship the official release.
It's best to use something lik CMake which allows you to either detect the presence of a library or let the builder point it to where it can be found at build time, and don't hardcode any paths or crazy platform-dependent search paths into your build system's project file.
Related
I'm struggling to deploy my Qt/C++ application, probably because I have not found a good introduction about this online. In brief my question is how do I setup an installation framework which requires only minimal, or preferably no, compilation before shipping to users.
I want to deploy the GUI to users on different platforms, who may or may not have admin rights on their machines. I have found different options:
Statically compile Qt -> statically compile an executable -> distribute the executable. With this setup I have encountered a Windows security warning, which requires admin privileges (I have not yet tried on Linux / macOS). And frankly this approach seems sub-optimal, as my compiler has no idea about how to compile optimally for my users.
Create an installer. But there I start to be confused... Do I need to provide a statically compiled executable of my GUI, or just of the installer, or neither? Or can I avoid pre-compiling on my side all together by using an installer from Qt with built-in compiler/libraries?
With this setup I have encountered a Windows security warning
You didn't sign the binaries. This issue has nothing to do with Qt. You'd face it even when distributing a trivial "Hello World".
Ensure that you sign all of the following:
The executables.
All DLLs that you redistribute and are not signed (verify each one).
The installer.
my compiler has no idea about how to compile optimally for my users.
Since C++ doesn't use just-in-time compilation, this statement is a truism. When you dynamically link your compiler will also have "no idea" how to compile "optimally for your users" if you imply that you need CPU-specific variants of your code. This has to be addressed by having multiple executables, each compiled for a particular CPU, and selecting them on installation. I don't think you meant that, though. But then I have no idea what you mean by "compile optimally for my users".
Do I need to provide a statically compiled executable of my GUI
It's up to you. If you don't provide a statically compiled executable, you will need to provide all of the dependencies: the C++ runtime of your compiler, and all the libraries and plugins needed by Qt.
The procedure for producing a statically linked executable on Windows, Linux and OS X is identical. You start with a statically configured copy of Qt (configure -static -static-runtime), then build it, and then use that to build your application. The end product will be statically linked against C++ runtime and Qt libraries.
Do I need to provide a statically compiled executable of [...] the installer
Only if you compile the installer program yourself using a C++ compiler. Most installer generator packages take care of creating an installer that has no additional dependencies, i.e. you can run it on a bare Windows system.
can I avoid pre-compiling on my side all together by using an installer from Qt
Qt provides no pre-built installers for re-use.
You can use e.g. NSIS to deploy the compiler runtime, Qt libraries and plugins, and your application and any data files it needs.
Or you can statically compile your application so that it has no dependencies and is a single .exe file, and have it as a portable application. It could also self-install, i.e. you could bundle the installer within the application, and on startup the application could detect whether it's already installed, and if not it'd relaunch itself in administrative mode and perform the installation.
Obviously you need to build your application on each platform you want to distribute it to. Easiest way is to link all the QT libraries dynamically to your application. After that all you need to do is provide your application (as in exe file on windows, or executable on linux etc) and the QT libraries you used (DLLs on windows, SO file I think on linux etc)
For example (on windows) if your app is called MyApp and uses QTGui, QTWidgets and QTNetwork, then you have the following files to distribute:
MyApp.exe
QTCore.dll and few other DLLs needed called icu*.dll something, can't remember)
QTGui.dll
QTWidgets.dll
QTNetwork.dll
and you can zip them all in one zip, create an installer etc.
EDIT Few notes after the follow up in the comment.
The standard library (what you called default library that has vector class) is part of the c/c++ runtime (on windows) or installed on linux systems etc, so no, you don't have to worry about this. I can't say for all compilers but for some you can specify a flag/parameter to link this runtime statically (rarely there is a need to do this).
On windows there is a tool called dependency walker, which gives you the list of all DLLs needed for the application to run. On linux systems I don't know, never needed one really. But for your own application, you do know which libraries you need, since you wrote it :)
When I develop across different OS's I find that a program built on one Linux system can not be run on another system, due to the different libc version.
How can I build in all the shared libraries just like golang did in c/c++?
Including libc and libcxx
If you want to run on multiple Linux systems, all you really need is to build using the oldest glibc from any of them. The easiest way is to simply download a virtual machine image from an old system like CentOS 5 and build there. You don't need to worry about static linking, just building against an old version will mean you are mostly compatible with newer versions.
How can i run a program which already has been built and compiled before on Qt IDE, so that i can take that program and run on any computer I want without recompiling it on that computer. I am a beginner so bare answering this question.:)
Thanks
There are a few parts to your problem.
1) You need to compile it for each architecture you want it to be used on.
2) Each architecture will have a set of Qt dynamic libraries associated with it too that need to be available.
3) Some architectures have an easy-to-deploy mechanism. EG, on a mac you can run "macdeployqt" to get the libraries into the application directory. For nokia phones (symbian, harmattan (N9), etc) QtCreator has a deploy step that will build a package for the phone and even include an icon.
4) For systems without such a feature, like linux and windows, you'll either need to distribute the binary and require the user to have Qt available or to package up a directory/zip containing the needed Qt libraries and distribute that.
It doesn't launch because it cannot find the dependencies. As you are on Windows, these libraries can be moved in the same directory as your application. To find which library is missing, use dependency walker
I am pretty sure these libraries are not found:
The Qt dynamic libraries (can be found on Qt bin directory, take the dll)
The C dynamic libraries used for compilation. If you are on creator and use default setting it will be mingw-xxx(can be found in the Qt installation directory, don t know exactly where)
Every Architect has a set of CPU Instructions.
so it's like when you hear a language that you don't understand. like when i speak Arabic To Someone who don't Understand The Language.
Every Architect Has a set of Processor Instructions, The Compiler only convert the code into instruction only understood by The Architecture that your CPU is.
That's Why Python and the most of High level languages Use Interpreter Instead of a Compiler.
But There are some cross compilers like MinGw that Support Cross compiling To Windows (.exe files)
Simply QT Have some libraries important to be in the working directory for your project.
I have been using a socket library for C++. Some other info: 32 bit Linux, Codelite and GCC toolset. I want to be able to compile my program for Windows using the windows edition of Codelite. The socket library I have been using doesn’t have a mingw32 build of the library, but it’s open source. So how can I make a mingw32 build of the socket library so I can make a windows build using the source provided?
Most open source linux libraries are built with the make build system (although there others like jam etc, and custom written scripts for building). MinGW comes with the make utility, it's mingw32-make.exe. It may be possible (if you're lucky) to simply rebuild your library by making it on Windows.
The more usual scenario is that you will need to configure the project before you can build it though. The windows shell doesn't support the scripting requirements required to configure, but there's another part of the MinGW project that does called MSYS. If you install msys and all the required tools you need for it, you'll be able to ./configure your project before running make.
Of course, the above will only work if the library is written to be portable. There are some breaking difference between the linux socket implementation (sys/socket.h), and the windows implementation (winsock2.h). You may be forced to edit chunks of the code to ensure that it is versioned correctly for the platform (or that any dependencies required are also built for Windows).
Also, there is the chance that the library may already be built for Windows, but using a different compiler like MSVC, which produces .lib and .dll files. Mingw requires .a files for libraries, but a clever feature is the ability to link directly against a .dll, without the need for an imports library, so you can often use an existing windows library that was not built against Mingw (Although this won't help for static linking). There is also a tool, dlltool, which can convert .lib to .a.
If you give detail on the specific library you're working with, I may be able to pick out for you what needs to be done to run it on Win.
You port it to the new platform. :)
You're fortunate that it is opensource, because then it would be practically impossible to port it (You'd have to pay $$$'s to get a copy of the code for a particular license, or rewrite the entire product).
Enjoy.
Alternatively, they may well already have a port... Check the documentation for the library you are using.
First off your going to need to make sure that you aren't including any Linux specific libraries.
Closed. This question needs to be more focused. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by editing this post.
Closed 7 years ago.
Improve this question
I used to program in Windows with Microsoft Visual C++ and I need to make some of my portable programs (written in portable C++) to be cross-platform, or at least I can release a working version of my program for both Linux and Windows.
I am total newcomer in Linux application development (and rarely use the OS itself).
So, today, I installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (through Wubi) and equipped Code::Blocks with the g++ compiler as my main weapon. Then I compiled my very first Hello World linux program, and I confused about the output program.
I can run my program through the "Build and Run" menu option in Code::Blocks, but when I tried to launch the compiled application externally through a File Browser (in /media/MyNTFSPartition/MyProject/bin/Release; yes, I saved it in my NTFS partition), the program didn't show up.
Why? I ran out of idea.
I need to change my Windows and Microsoft Visual Studio mindset to Linux and Code::Blocks mindset.
So I came up with these questions:
How can I execute my compiled linux programs externally (outside IDE)?
In Windows, I simply run the generated executable (.exe) file
How can I distribute my linux application?
In Windows, I simply distribute the executable files with the corresponding DLL files (if any)
What is the equivalent of LIBs (static library) and DLLs (dynamic library) in linux and how to use them?
In Windows/Visual Studio, I simply add the required libraries to the Additional Dependencies in the Project Settings, and my program will automatically link with the required static library(-ies)/DLLs.
Is it possible to use the "binary form" of a C++ library (if provided) so that I wouldn't need to recompile the entire library source code?
In Windows, yes. Sometimes precompiled *.lib files are provided.
If I want to create a wxWidgets application in Linux, which package should I pick for Ubuntu? wxGTK or wxX11? Can I run wxGTK program under X11?
In Windows, I use wxMSW, Of course.
If question no. 4 is answered possible, are precompiled wxX11/wxGTK library exists out there? Haven't tried deep google search.
In Windows, there is a project called "wxPack" (http://wxpack.sourceforge.net/) that saves a lot of my time.
Sorry for asking many questions, but I am really confused on these linux development fundamentals.
Any kind of help would be appreciated =)
Thanks.
How can I execute my compiled linux
programs externally (outside IDE)? In
Windows, I simply run the generated
executable (.exe) file
On Linux you do the same. The only difference is that on Linux the current directory is by default not in PATH, so typically you do:
./myapp
If you add current dir to the path
PATH=".:$PATH"
then windows-like way
myapp
will do, but this is not recommended due to security risks, at least in shared environments (you don't want to run /tmp/ls left by somebody).
How can I distribute my linux application?
In Windows, I simply distribute the executable files with the corresponding DLL files (if any)
If you are serious about distributing, you should probably learn about .deb (Ubuntu, Debian) and .rpm (RedHat, CentOS, SUSE). Those are "packages" which make it easy for the user to install the application using distribution-specific way.
There are also a few installer projects which work similarly to windows installer generators, but I recommend studying the former path first.
What is the equivalent of LIBs (static library) and DLLs (dynamic library) in linux and how to use them?
.a (static) and .so (dynamic). You use them in more or less the same way as on Windows, of course using gcc-specific compilation options. I don't use Code::Blocks so I don't know how their dialogs look like, in the end it is about adding -llibrary to the linking options (guess what: on windows it is about adding /llibrary ;-))
Is it possible to use the "binary form" of a C++ library (if provided) so that I wouldn't need to recompile the entire library source code?
Yes. And plenty of libraries are already present in distributions.
Note also that if you use .deb's and .rpm's for distribution, you can say "my app needs such and such libraries installed" and they will be installed from the distribution archives. And this is recommended way, in general you should NOT distribute your copy of the libraries.
If I want to create a wxWidgets application in Linux, which package should I pick for Ubuntu? wxGTK or wxX11? Can I run wxGTK program under X11?
Try wxGTK first, dialogs may look better, gnome themes should be used etc.
If question no. 4 is answered possible, are precompiled wxX11/wxGTK library exists out there? Haven't tried deep google search.
Try
apt-cache search wx
(or spawn your Ubuntu Software Center and search for wx)
In short: you will find everything you need in distribution archives.
Navigate to the folder with your compiled program and execute ./program
Send the program, plus any .so files
.a is static library, .so is shared libraries.
Yes, but often you need to compile it yourself first.
Not sure about wxWidgets distributions, though.
Since Ubuntu comes with wxGTK packages you should definitely build against them. For development you should use a debug version though, so it might be good to build yourself, but for deployment building against the packages the system provides seems better.
wxX11 is a worse choice than wxGTK, use it only for systems where wxGTK doesn't exist or requires newer GTK libraries than are available.
Why not just stick with what you know and develop in .NET? Ubuntu comes native with Mono. You could keep using Visual C++ or step up to C# and make your life a whole lot easier.
A piece of general advice to Linux newcomers, but who are technically minded to begin with, is: You should learn to use your chosen distribution properly.
In your case, that means learning how to acquire the right development packages provided by Ubuntu. For instance, some other people are advising you to download the source for libraries you are going to use, but the better way is to use Ubuntu's package system to download the libraries you want to program against, together with the headers for that library (often put in a separate package) as well as the debug symbols for the library (also often in a separate package).
Look in the System->Administration menu in Ubuntu for the Synaptic tool, which allows you to search the package repositories on the Internet. You'll almost certainly find packages for the libraries you need, as well as all tools.
1, Unix generally doesn't have a particular extension for an executable - so myprog.exe would just be myprog.
You might have to set it to be executable if the IDE doesn't do this automatically, type "chmod +x myprog"
5, For wxWindows I would download the source and build it, check the build instructions but it's probably just a matter of "configure;make;make install". Generally in Unix you build libs form source so that they can correctly find all the components on your machine - you also have the source of examples etc.
I just added some information to rlbond's answer.
It is depens on Linux version. If you use a Ubuntu - create a deb-package. (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=51003)
Can I run wxGTK program under X11?
Yes, if you have wxGTK package installed :)
This is not really going to answer your questions, but I think is a valid recommendation.
You have two issues you are trying to deal with:
The Linux environment.
Making sure your program is
portable.
If I were you I would load CodeBlocks on Windows and run against either Cygwin or Mingw, that will help you make sure your code is portable across platforms. You are familiar with the environment and would gain maximum productivity getting over the OS hurdle.
Once you are satisfied with the above then take your code and move it to Linux. At that point any porting effort should be trivial.
When you say your program didn't show up I assume you mean that it was there in the file browser but when you double clicked it you got a busy cursor for a moment and then nothing happened?
If so then it means that the program failed to run, probably because it couldn't find the dynamic libraries it's linked against. To diagnose the problem you can run it from a terminal and then you'll be told what the problem is.
You might want to read the manual page for ld.so i.e. type
man ld.so
into a terminal. This tells you where the Linux dynamic library linker looks for libraries at run-time. It also refers you to another useful tool called ldd which I recommend becoming familiar with if your are doing Linux development.