When I was using pyqt it was necessary to compile for mac on a mac, instead of being able to export a build for mac from linux (or windows, or whatever)
Now that I'm using straight c++ development, does this fact change at all? Or must I still compile for a given OS on the given OS?
Ideally I'd love to be able to just pick a platform and compile for it. Unity3d does this, but I imagine I'm comparing apples and oranges at this point.
Is this possible? Or do I got to find a friend with a mac? Cuz I don't have no friends... ;)
Typically yes, you have to. In some cases you can cross-compile, for example, this is available stock for android apps, as there is no Qt SDK that can run on android cross-compilation is the only option. You can also build a custom Qt to cross-compile to another OS. This is not available by default, it requires a custom build.
However, when it comes to ios or macos cross-compilation is not an option, as far as I know there is no way around but to compile under macos.
I'm updating a project to use the latest Qt and taking the opportunity to switch to libc++ and C++11 at the same time. My understanding is that OS X 10.7 and above support this without me needing to ship my own build of the standard library. I'm happy to no longer support OS X versions <10.7.
C++11 support is great, but I'd really like to use C++14.
Does the libc++ installed for end-users with OS X >10.7 also support C++14 standard library features?
My guess is 'Yes' and that it's kept up to date by OS updates in >10.7 - but I've been unable to find a definitive source stating this to be the case.
Probably not. Apple shipped the last update for Mac OS X 10.7 (10.7.5) in October 2012; it's unlikely that the libc++.dylib has been updated since then (the only exception that I could think of is for security issues)
Xcode ships with a set of headers that change with what SDK you target; if you target a particular system (say 10.7), you get those headers.
Compare the contents of /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.10.sdk/usr/include/ and /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.9.sdk/usr/include/ too see what I mean.
For template-only features, you could use your own set of headers from a later LLVM release - but then you would be taking the burden of ensuring compatibility upon yourself.
I'm developing an SDL application in C++, and some of my consumers have asked for a version that runs on Mac OS X. I am wondering if anyone knows of a good cross-compiler for Mac OS X targets, and maybe a Mac OS X emulator (maybe a virtual HDD for Virtual Box?) so that I can actually test it myself.The emulator is not 100% necessary though, as it's probably illegal and I can understand if nobody's willing.
I'm using a PC (Windows XP) for my host machine, and I don't have the funding to go and purchase a Mac, sadly.
The easiest, and most common, solution is the other way: use a Mac platform with Windows installed either as dual boot or in a virtual machine.
That way you will benefit of 100% of both worlds and never be bothered whenever a Mac system update is delivered.
Bonus: You can install Linux as well.
I'm developing a Qt application and I need to support Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. The only problem however is that I do not own a Mac. Is it possible to compile my application for Mac OS X on Linux and package it in a .dmg file?
I'm also worried with the fact that my application depends on OpenSSL, can I compile OpenSSL for Mac OS X on my Linux machine?
Thank you.
How do you want to support Mac if you can't even test if your software works?
Cross-compilation for OS X: I doubt there is any solution out there (I'd love to learn about it if it is), you'd need the whole SDK and toolchain for that.
For the .dmg file creation part, there is another question here:
How to build a dmg Mac OS X file (on a non-Mac platform)?
There should be no need to bundle openssl, as it's part of every OS X installation.
If you want to support Mac you need to Mac, access to one (remote, rented etc.), or someone who does it for you. I don't think you have another choice.
As the accepted answer in
How to Compile for OS X in Linux or Windows?
suggests, you can go for Macports in case you develop free software. It does the compiling on the user's machine (think FreeBSD ports or Gentoo's emerge). Still, that will require testing.
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.