Can I use C++ with UDK? I know they mention unrealscript on their page but I've also heard that C++ can be used instead, is that so?
It depends. If you use the free version of UDK you can't code the game in C++, but you can include self written DLLs which can be written in C++.
If you become a licensee you get the C++ source code of the unreal engine 3 and then are able to program in C++.
But getting the source code is very expensive, several grand if I recall correctly, so you are probably stuck with UnrealScript for the majority of your time.
More information about how use DLL:
Calling DLLs from UnrealScript (DLLBind)
Unreal Engine 4 was released recently for 20$/month + 5% of profits, and you get access to its source code which you can compile with your code together.
However, you won't find the UnrealScript component, the only scripting solution available is the GUI-based Kismet-like thingy.
Related
My question is a little bit stupid but I decided to ask advanced programmers like some of you. So I want to make a "dynamic" C++ program. My idea is to compile it and after compilation (maybe with scripting language like python) to change some how the code of the program. I know you will tell me that after the compilation I can not change the code but is there a way of doing that. Thank you!
You could design a modular architecture using plugins in external libraries. For example you could use the Command Pattern. That way you can dynamically load code that was generated after you main program. You would have to fix an interface though. Functions like GetProcAddress in the Windows api might be a good point to start.
For dynamic coding and rapid prototyping I recommend to have a look at Lua. The engine is very small and easy to integrate in your c++ program.
The only way to do that in C++ is to unload the DLL with the code to be
modified, modify the sources, invoke the compiler to regenerate the DLL,
and reload the DLL. It's very, very heavy weight, and it only works if
the compiler is present on the machines where the code is to be run.
(Usually the case under Unix, rarely the case with Windows.)
Interpreted languages like Python are considerably more dynamic; Python
has a built-in function to execute a string as Python code, for example.
If you need dynamically modifiable code, I'd suggest embedding Python in
your application, and using it for the dynamic parts.
Personally I have never played with re-compiling C++ during runtime, and I do not intend too. However I have been doing a lot of embedding of scripting languages lately.
Someone else mentioned the obvious first choice for embedding: Lua. Lua is a pretty popular language to embed and you will find a bunch of documentation about how to do it. Integrating it into the C++ will allow you to define behavior at runtime like you want.
What I am using is a wonderful langauge called Squirrel. It is a lot like Lua but with native object(class) support and C++-like syntax. I have managed to embed it into a C++ application, and through using the sqrat binding library both languages can share information easily.
I have squirrel building and initializing my UI. As a result, 0 compiling is required in order to craft and structure my UI for my game. I intend to take this a step further and use this gameplay-side in order to create similar behavior you are looking for(changing behavior at runtime through dynamic code usage)
I recommend Checking out squirrel here: http://www.squirrel-lang.org/
I plan on writing tutorials on how to embed squirrel and install the binding library, but I have not started on them yet. If I can remember, I will edit this post in the future (could be a few months) once I have completed them. In the meantime give it a shot yourself. You may find it to your liking.
Does anyone know how to compile your c++ code wich you write while your program is already running?
And later i would like to run that code.
I want to do this because I am trying to make a game that woul teach you programing and so the user would have to write the code while the game is running and test it.
Thanks for any help
You'd have an easier time if you chose a language that was designed with embedding in mind - like LUA or python. For C++, you'd have to go for something extremely clumsy and fragile like invoking an external compiler (which is also a logistics nightmare when shipping your game), or something as complex as integrating a compiler in your game (probably doable with llvm components, but...)
Also, for "teaching programming", C++ probably isn't the best language :)
You have to call the compiler to compile and link the user-entered code. This has to be made either into an executable that is then run from another process you create, or as a library that you dynamically load and call.
How this is done is different on POSIX platforms (like Linux and OSX) and Windows.
is there a multiplatform c++ compiler that could be linked into any software ?
Lets say I want to generate c++ code at runtime, compile it and run it.
I'm looking for a compact solution (bunch of classes), preferably LGPL/BSD licence :)
As far as I know it can be done in Java and c#. What about c++ ?
Well maybe one of the modules of CLang will be of help? It's not dry yet on the C++ side but certainly will be soon.
I don't know of any open source ones for C++, but if you want small and compact scripting and are not hung up on C++ LUA might be an option for you
I'd drop C++ altogether and use Google V8. If you wanted to use C++ because the people using your app only know this, they should have no difficulties going to javascript.
And it's damn fast. And Javascript is a cool language too.
I've done this years ago in Linux by generating C++-code into a file, compile it by shell execute (with gcc) and then linking in the generated library dynamically. The dynamic linking differs of course between platforms.
This kind of thing is much much harder in C++, because the language doesn't use a virtual machine (or "runtime") that abstracts machine specifics away.
You could look into gcc, it's under the GPL IIRC, and ports exist for all major platforms.
When we looked into scripting we chose AngelScript because of the similarity with C++.
V8 is great but it's certainly limited to some platforms, AngelScript is a lot easier to compile with and probably to learn (if you came from C++) and it has a zlib license.
http://www.angelcode.com/angelscript/
I just heard from somewhere that for numerical computation, "MATLAB does offer some user-friendly APIs. If you call these APIs in your C/C++ code, you can speed up computation dramatically."
But I did not find such information in MATLAB documents like http://www.mathworks.com/support/tech-notes/1600/1622.html and http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/matlab_external/bp_kqh7.html. All I learned from these websites is that MATLAB can be called in C and C++ by Matlab engine or by compiling M-files into libraries by mcc. They don't mention any built-in numerical MATLAB APIs that can be called in C/C++.
Can someone please clarify?
Thanks and regards!
You want the "Engine" routines. This allows you to start up a background MATLAB process from C and execute calculations on it: relevant MATLAB documentation.
It works pretty well, have a look at the examples. I would say the most annoying thing getting it working is marshaling the data between C and MATLAB. But that's always a problem when doing this kind of thing.
It sounds like you're looking for the code generation tools in the embedded matlab toolbox or real time workshop.
Do doc eml and look for a the LMS (least mean square) equalizer demo.
The code generator is quite good, it will give you a make file that will build a static library. It's easy to use with your stand alone C/C++ code.
There could be a few things that quote is referencing, I assume that it is referring to the MATLAB Compiler. So going from MATLAB -> C++ you can use the compiler to build standalone "faster" applications. However, when speed testing the improvement, I've noticed it to be negligible. Honestly, you're probably far better off coding your work in C from the get-go, the code that the compiler generates is spaghetti and non-object oriented. I should also mention that this is an expensive extension to Matlab.
You can use the MCR in your own c++ project as a stand-alone library (details)... but you might get similar results using Numerical Recipes.
Disclaimer: I used this product 2-3 years ago, things could be different now.
I'm all for language diversity, but Objective C is insane. So I'm curious: is it possible to code iPhone apps with C++ while using the Cocoa API, etc?
Although Objective-C does indeed appear to be "insane" initially, I encourage you to stick with it. Once you have an "a-ha" moment, suddenly it all starts to make sense. For me it took about 2 weeks of focused Objective-C concentration to really understand the Cocoa frameworks, the language, and how it all fits together. But once I really "got" it, it was very very exciting.
It sounds cliché, but it's true. Stick it out.
Of course, if you're bringing in C++ libraries or existing C++ code, you can use those modules with Objective-C/Objective-C++.
Short answer, yes, sort of. You can use Objective-C++, which you can read about at Apple Developer Connection.
If you know C++ already, learning Objective-C would be pretty simple, if you decided to give that a try. More info on that topic is at the ADC as well.
I use Objective-C to slap the UI together.
But the hard guts of the code is still written in C++.
That is the main purpose of Objective-C the UI interface and handling the events.
And it works great for that purpose.
I still like C++ as the backend for the code though (but that's mainly becuase I like C++) you could quite easily use Objective-C for the backend of the application as well.
First off, saying Objective-C is "insane" is humorous- I have the Bjarne Stroustrup C++ book sitting by my side which clocks in at 1020 pages. Apple's PDF on Objective-C is 141.
If you want to use UIKit it will be very, very difficult for you to do anything in C++. Any serious iPhone app that conforms to Apple's UI will need it's UI portions to be written in Objective-C. Only if you're writing an OpenGL game can you stick almost entirely to C/C++.
Having some experience of this, you can indeed use C++ code for your "core" code, but you have to use objective-C for anything iPhone specific.
Don't try to force Objective-C to act like C++. At first it will seem to you this is possible, but the resulting code really won't work well with Cocoa, and you will get very confused as to what is going on. Take the time to learn properly, without any C++ around, how to build GUIs and iPhone applications, then link in your C++ base.
You have to use Objective C to interface with the Cocoa API, so there is no choice. Of course, you can use as much C++ as you like behind the scenes (Objective C++ makes this easy).
It is an insane language indeed, but it's also... kind of fun to use once you're a bit used to it. :-)
I'm not sure about C++, but you can definitely code iPhone applications in C#, using a product called MonoTouch.
You can see this post for detailed discussion on MonoTouch Vs Obj-C: How to decide between MonoTouch and Objective-C?
I'm in the process of porting a computation-intensive Android app written in Java to iOS6. I'm doing this by porting the non-UI parts from Java to C++, writing the (minimal) UI parts in Obj-C, and wrapping the former in a (small) C interface using the standard C/C++ technique, so that it can be accessed from Obj-C, which is after all a superset of C.
This has been effective so far, and I haven't encountered any gotchas. It seems to be a legitimate approach, since Xcode lets you create C++ classes as well as Obj-C classes, and some of the official sample code does things this way. I haven't had to go outside any officially supported interfaces to do this.
There wouldn't seem to be much to gain from writing my remaining UI code in C++ even if it were possible, in view of the help given to you by the interface builder in Xcode, so my answer would be that you can use C++ for almost all your app, or as much of it as you find appropriate/convenient.
Yes but Thinking that you can program every kind of program in a single language is a flawed idea unless you are writing very simple programs. Objective C is for Cocoa as C# is for .NET, Use the right tool for right job, Trying to make C++ interact to Cocoa via writing bridging code and trying to make C++ code behave according to Cocoa requirements is not a good idea neither expecting C++ performance from Objective C is. You should try to layout design and architecture of app keeping in view existing skills and determine which part should be written in which language then build accordingly.
I'm currently writing an Objective-C++ framework called Objective-X, wich makes PURE C++ iPHONE PROGRAMMING possible. You can do like this:
#import "ObjectiveX.h"
void GUIApplicationMain() {
GUIAlert Alert;
GUILabel Label;
GUIScreen MainScreen;
Alert.set_text(#"Just a lovely alert box!");
Alert.set_title(#"Hello!");
Alert.set_button(#"Okay");
Alert.show();
Label.set_text(#"Ciao!");
Label.set_position(100, 200, 120, 40);
MainScreen.init();
MainScreen.addGUIControl(Label.init());
}
and compile it using GCC's appropriate commandline options. I've already compiled this helloworld app&it w0rkX0rz like a charm. ;-) It'll available soon on GoogleCode. Search for Objective-X or visit http://infotronix.orgfree.com/objectivex approx. a week later!
Updated (but apparently inactive) URL: http://code.google.com/p/objectivex/
It may be a bit offtopic, but anyway. You can program c++ right on iOS devices. Check out CppCode ios app - http://cppcode.info. I believe it helps to learn c and c++ and objective-c later.