I am considering the use of some C++11 features (like auto for instance) in some cross-platform projects (Windows+Mac). On Windows, Visual Studio supports parts of the upcoming C++11 standard that would allow me to simplify parts of the code base so naturally I would be interested in starting to use these features.
But as far as I am aware, the current XCode version (3.2.4 + GCC 4.2) does not support any C++11 features at all. Can I upgrade the GCC version or the CLang version somehow? Or should I just bite my tongue and wait for Apple to package a new version sometime in the future?
Xcode 4.2 had finally added support for C++0X:
In the project build settings screen, switch on "All" options.
In the "Build Options" section, set compiler to "Apple LLVM compiler 3.0".
Scroll down to "Apple LLVM Compiler 3.0 - Language" section and set "C++ Language Dialect" to "C++0X" and "C++ Standard Library" to "libc++".
The std::move(), move constructor and R-Value reference are known to work as expected, and I'm testing on the std::thread and std::atomic.
======= Update 2012: =======
Start with Clang - Many C++11 features are now available in Clang. It's included with Xcode.
======= Original answer from Jan 2011: =======
intel's compiler may be the cleanest way to go at this time.
http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-composer-xe/
clang's promising, but not particularly stable or featured wrt c++0x features. c++ is still very new for clang.
gcc: relatively mature, but you'll have to write and maintain your compiler plugins for xcode.
you can also specify custom scripts, but that is a pain to maintain... unless you go all out and create an adaptor tool.
Xcode uses the GCC or the Clang C++ compilers. Any features supported by those compilers are fair game. GCC's C++ compatibility page is here and the Clang C++ compatibility page is here.
I've found auto, decltype(), range based "for (:)" work in a cross platform project (LLVM for MacOSX,iOS, gcc/linux, MSVC 10/windows).
lambdas & variadic macros don't appear to work under LLVM yet sadly.
Related
I am using Visual Studio 2017 and need to create code that is compatible to VS2008 (C++03 or C++98). Is there a switch to restrict MSVC to C++03 features?
I am using CMake and tried to set
set_property(TARGET tgt PROPERTY CXX_STANDARD 98)
But this seems only to make sure, that the compiler supports C++98 or newer.
Any solution, that checks if C++ code uses features that are newer than the features supported by VS2008 will work as well. I just need to make sure, that I do not accidentally use features that are too new.
MSVC only got the standard switch in one of the updates to VS2015 (Update 3 to be exact) which was more or less C++14 compliant, and as such there are only switches for standards starting with C++14 (plus a few later features that were already implemented at the time of the update). All older features are enabled unconditionally for backwards compatibility (and because of all the work required to retrofit already implemented features for previous standards for virtually no gain).
See this blog post for more information: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/standards-version-switches-in-the-compiler/
Also, note that there were a lot of conformance improvements in newer versions of MSVC, so even with the std switches you could write code that wouldn't work or would behave differently on older compiler.
A better solution would be just to use VS2008 toolset from VS2017 visual studio, as explained here: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/stuck-on-an-older-toolset-version-move-to-visual-studio-2015-without-upgrading-your-toolset/
That way you'll be certain your code compiles on the older toolset, while using up-to-date IDE.
I'm currently working on a project that primarily uses C++98 as a coding standard for backwards compatibility. I'm working on OSX10.9 mavericks and have compiled all dependencies against libc++.
I would like to configure Xcode in such a way that it gives me a warning or doesn't compile when I use C++11 language features.
Compiling with the -std=c++98 flag didn't show any errors/notifications concerning the use of C++11 features.
I didn't enable the "Using C++11 extensions in earlier versions of C++"-warning. Now XCode will show me a compiler warning if I use C++11 features.
To check if I use library features from the new standard I still have to link libstdc++.
I was just watching a few videos on Channel9. I found things like lambdas really cool. when I tried to copy the example, it failed. auto didn't work either.
I'm using Nokia's qtcreator which ships with gcc-4.4.0.
I wanted to know which compiler has the fun features implemented so I could play around and learn. I'm not anti MS or anyhting so I don't mind trying Visual Studio if it has those features.
Nearly all C++11 features are implemented in the GCC 4.6.x . A good place to get latest GCC builds (MinGW) is the TDM website - http://tdm-gcc.tdragon.net/download . It should be easy to replace your current GCC with TDM GCC by overwriting files...
A special version of MinGW:
MinGW-Builds gives you everything gcc offers (currently 4.7.2)
That is: Including support for std::thread, std::async, std::future and friends.
As far as I know that's by far the most complete C++11 you can get on Windows.
You just get the MinGW-build binaries here. Unlike other gcc-based installations it supports posix threads, which are currently key to getting the gcc support for C++11 threads and friends working on Windows.
Extract the directory mingw to any location and add the following two paths to your PATH environment variable: (well, change F:\coding ...)
F:\coding\MinGW\bin
F:\coding\MinGW\msys\1.0\bin
Add both, separated by semi colon. You will need to log out or reboot. To verify that you got it right, you can open a command prompt, and write
g++ --version
You should get a response like this, mentioning MinGW-builds:
g++ (Built by MinGW-builds project) 4.7.2
Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc. ...
I wrote a more complete instruction for getting this going with Eclipse, here: http://scrupulousabstractions.tumblr.com/post/36441490955/eclipse-mingw-builds
For playing around and learning C++11 on Windows, I recommend MinGW Distro by Stephan T. Lavavej. The newest version contains GCC 4.8.2 and Boost 1.55.0.
Take a look at MinGW-w64 if you're looking for a gcc-compatible compiler on Windows that supports a number of C++11 features.
Also if you're just looking for lambas and auto, as well as some other C++11 features like decltype, etc., (again, not as many feature are implemented compared to the latest stable gcc branch) then you can also use the free Visual Studio 2010 Express for C++ on Windows.
See here for an overview of the compilers and the supported C++11 features.
Scott Meyers maintains a webpage here:
C++11FeatureAvailability
The First link on the Webpage is:
Apache Wiki Overview of C++11 Support in Several Compilers is what you should have a look at.It doccuments in detail C++11 features supported by all popular compilers.
The Visual Studio 11 preview also supports lambdas.
Visual Studio 2017 has support in C++11, C++14, & C++17. + some of the Modern C++ "experimental" modules. If you decide on Visual Studio, you set the C++ standard at the project properties. C++11 is by default, but you can set it to C++14, C++17, or latest draft.
As regards g++, C++0x feature support should be detailed here: C++0x/C++11 Support in GCC - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you want to test most of the C++11 syntax using a Windows machine you have two options:
Install Cygwin and compile from sources gcc-4.7 (latest snapshot) and clang++ with libstdc++. However it is not guaranteed that this will work.
Safest bet: Install a modern Linux (such as Ubuntu if you are a Linux newbie) in a virtual machine (VirtualBox is a free virtual machine application) and in this virtual machine compile gcc-4.7 and clang++. I was able to successfully compile both of them on Ubuntu 11.10 following the instructions from this website.
Best option, as of 2014, is to use Visual Studio 2013 updated with the latest CTP (this will work even for the Express edition).
Few Min-GW Compilers do not support C++ Version 11 or later. This version is required for thread in OpenCV. So I will suggest using TDM-GCC Compiler instead of MinGW Compiler. Install this compiler and set path C:\TDM-GCC-64\bin to the system's environmental variable.
I have project that is at times developed on Windows/Visual Studio 2010 and uses some C++11 features and I need to be able to develop/build on Mac OS X. When I tried to build the project with Xcode I got a lot of errors around new C++11 features and checked the gcc version to find it's pretty old (4.2).
It looks like Apple is trying to force developers to pay an unnecessary upgrade to Lion by refusing to allow Xcode 4+ to be downloaded on any other version of Mac OS thus I'm left with Xcode 3.x.
How can I continue to use C++11 on Snow Leopard? Is there a way I can do this and keep Xcode as an IDE?
Update feb.25 2012: There are now a lot of features available for you to work with using the latest clang. Maybe you could target 10.6 if you use language features only. If you need library features, you will need 10.7.
given the present (sept.24.2011) state of the Xcode toolset, it's easiest (IMO) to choose another ide or os if you need c++11 support.
the fork of gcc xcode uses will never support these features. clang is pretty far behind wrt c++11 features (because its c++ implementation is still very new and other compilers have had a few extra years). therefore, the compilers xcode ships with do not presently support enough features for c++11 development, regardless of the version of osx you use.
you can install a newer version of gcc and use another ide fairly easily.
technically, you can also make a plugin for xcode 3 (not officially supported) which invokes another compiler (e.g. a more recent release of gcc). that route has been closed in xc4 (afaik). Update apparently, it's still available in Xc4; see idljarn's comment below.
for many projects, it's easier to just use your mac to boot into linux or windows (or use virtualization).
your final option is intel's compiler, which can be used in xcode and provides a decent amount of c++11 support -- try it with xcode before you buy to see if it fits your needs, plays well with xcode, and supports the c++11 features your team uses.
lastly, i don't think they do this for your upgrade money. they really don't maintain xcode for multiple releases very well - they just expect you to stay with the latest and greatest unless you need backwards compatibility; you just stop upgrading in that case. they invested in and assisted development of clang after gcc's license changed. so yeah... osx has always been very far behind wrt c++11 support because they decided to switch to another (very young) compiler. if you wait for xcode to support c++11, you will have to wait for clang to support it, which can be quite some time.
I just saw this now and I would like to update you on this. LLVM currently shipping with XCode is at version 3 (Source). This current version is very good with supporting C++11. Here is a link to what is supported:
http://clang.llvm.org/cxx_status.html
You can compare this with the current GCC support here:
http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/cxx0x.html
As you can see, Clang is currently not far behind, if it is at all, with features of the new standard being supported. The only thing that I see concerning is the lack of support for concurrency features, but that is the case for most C++11 compilers due to the nature of supporting it.So I hope that this answer is not too late and that you are not deterred. Go get the latest version of Xcode and fire away (If you have not done so already ;) )!
I'm interested in learning C++ more thoroughly now that C++11 is apparently ratified. What compiler currently implements the closest thing available to full C++11 support? How close is said compiler to full support? Are there still major features missing or just language lawyer minutiae?
There's a support matrix on the Apache wiki.
I think the one Scott Meyers maintains on his homepage is pretty good:
http://www.aristeia.com/C++0x/C++0xFeatureAvailability.htm
The llvm C++ compiler "clang" has partial C++11 support; you can see its current state at http://clang.llvm.org/cxx_status.html.
There's also GCC C++0x (or C++11) status page : http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/cxx0x.html
IBM's xlC++ compiler has a basic C++11 feature support page.
To anyone reading this now, as of Jan 2013 Clang 3.2 is probably the most complete C++11 compiler, although the latest dev branch of GCC (4.8.x) is going to bring GCC back on par by the looks of it.
http://clang.llvm.org/cxx_status.html
Just look at that support table! Epic stuff. That's only accounting for currently available stable versions as well whereas the GCC table contains some 4.8 entries.
Like I said though, when GCC 4.8 hits stable release, it's going to be tight between the two again:
http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/cxx0x.html