here is an interesting question that, if answered positively, would make cross compiling a whole lot easier.
Since gcc is written in C++, would it be possible to recompile the Linux gcc compiler on Windows MinGW G++ or VSC++ compiler, so that the resulting Windows executable would be able to compile c code to linux programs?
If so, what would be needed to do that?
So to simplify, here is what I want to do.
mingw32-g++ gcc.cpp -o gcc.exe
The command will probably not work because it would probably have been done before if it were that easy. What I ask is if this concept would be even possible.
Edit: thanks and expanding the question to NVCC
fvu was able to answer the question for the gcc compiler (please use the answer button next time), so if you had the same question you can thank him (or her) .
As an extention to the question, would it be possible to edit or recompile nvcc or the things it uses so that nvcc.exe can create a linux program from CUDA C code? I read that the windows variant of nvcc can only use the Visual Studio cl.exe and not MinGW or CygWin.
Is it possible to create linux programs with cl.exe? And if so, could that be used to generate linux programs with nvcc.exe?
Read the chapter on cross compiling in the gcc manual, gcc's architecture makes it quite easy to set up a toolchain where the target is different from the development machine.
I never went the exact route you describe, but I have built toolchains under Windows that target ARM9 embedded Linux machines, works like a charm - using cygwin btw. Look here for a gentle introduction. Also very useful info here.
I am not going to comment on what can be done with respect to nvcc, CUDA is somewhere on my (long) list of stuff to tinker with...
Now, can cl generate Linux binaries? The answer to this question is "sort of" : as long as the target processor is from a processor family that's supported by cl, the object files generated by it should probably not contain anything that would inhibit its execution on Linux, as they'll just contain machine code. That's the theory. However:
as Linux uses another executable format, you will need a Windows-hosted linker that understands Windows style object files (afaik, COFF), and links them together to a Linux style (ELF) executable. I never heard of such a beast, although in theory it could exist
the startup code (a tiny program that wraps around your main function) will also be different and needs to be written
and some more, eg library related issues
So, the practical answer is no, although it might be a nice summer project for a bored student :)
Related
I am working on ARM cortex A7 based embedded system that runs Linux. I am looking for c/c++ compiler (as GCC is around 100 mb) which is compact in size and reliable. I have shortlisted some as SDCC, TCC, OTCC, Digital Mars, NWCC, LCC, Small C, portable C compiler.
I want to know if compilers are dependent on operating system or hardware and how should I proceed to start strip down the list. I am not an expert and I am learning about Linux systems and embedded environment. If you think I am asking wrong question or going in wrong direction, Kindly let me know.
Thanks you
Note
I already have cross compiler on my linux (laptop) system. I compile program to be loaded using this only. But the embedded system is supposed to be able to load with a particular language designed by us, I am hoping to convert that language in to equivalent C code and run it. I tried writing my own interpreter in c that accepts the code in other language and parse it and executes but it's little slow, I tried same instructions in (directly written in) C with satisfactory results.
Edit:
I ended up using g++ on my system to compile code, as main function of system was to use generated code.
Generally, when dealing with embedded systems you are better off cross-compiling and sending the binaries than compiling directly on the device. Even though it may consume you some time setting up the toolchain on the beginning, it definitely pays you back with build time.
There are several pre-built Linaro GCC which are cross-compilers having (generally) x86 linux as host and arm linux as target platforms. This way, you should not worry about compiler size.
I have a code that I have written in Fortran during my PhD, and now I am collaborating with some researcher that uses Linux, and they need my model, that is basically a single executable file. In the future I will probably make it open source, but up to know they just want the executable, also because they are not programmers and they have never compiled a program in their life. So the question is: is it possible to compile it on my linux machine and then send it to them in order to use it in another linux machine?Or does the linux version and distribution matter?
thank you very much
A.
If you do not use many libraries you can do that. One option is statically linking the executable (-static or similar compiler option). You need to have the static versions of all needed libraries for that. The have .a suffix. They are often not installed by default in Linux distributions and often they are not supplied in the repositories at all.
In my distrbution (OpenSuSE) they are in packages like glibc-devel-static, lapack-devel-static and similar.
The other option would be to compile the executable on a compatible distribution the users will have (GLIBC version is important) and supply all .so dynamically linked libraries they will need with your executable.
All of this assumes you use the same platform, like i586 or amd64 or arm like wallyk comments. I mostly assumed you are on a PC. You can force most compilers to produce a 32-bit or 64-bit executable by -m32 or -m64 option. You need the right version of the development libraries for that.
Under Windows I installed MinGW and Eclipse, and created a new C++ project with the inspiring name of foo, using the MinGW GCC toolchain, and this compiles, runs and even debugs. Wonderful.
Still under Windows, I installed Cygwin, an epic undertaking that stressed my internet connection. Eventually I specified Cygwin GCC toolchain and a projectname of bar. This compiles and runs but can't do step through debugging (claims it can't find source).
Under Linux, mint13 specifically, I installed the all-singing all-dancing C++ edition of Eclipse with all the trimmings and created a new C++ project, with the even more inspiring name of baz and the Linux GCC toolchain selected. Eclipse complains that it cannot find iostream.
I am rather confused by this. If I launch a terminal window and run g++ it is found, so clearly I have at least some of the GNU C++ stuff. I don't know what is missing. Linux is a new world for me. Can anyone offer guidance?
For the record, the generated code is in a file called foo.cpp (or bar.cpp according to project name) and looks like this:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
cout << "Hello World" << endl; // prints Hello World
return 0;
}
#bmargulies - I know your comment was tongue in cheek but I wouldn't use emacs in a pink fit. I'd set up SAMBA and use Textpad on a Windows workstation because I have enough to learn without unnecessarily learning to use a new text editor. The reason I chose Eclipse was a vain hope that it might provide a working baseline with an integrated debugger from which to explore the brave new world of C++ on Linux. Combined with MinGW it did provide that on Windows.
I know the big problem here is not the tools, it is my ignorance and a set of expectations from a different world. This is compounded by a lack of experience with C++ - my sole experience with C++ was using TurboC fifteen years ago.
A source of great confusion is the mechanism used to resolve library references.
A lot of projects seem to use make, which as far as I can tell is a sort of script file for compiling and linking a project or set of projects. Make seems to come in a variety of flavours and there also seem to be alternatives that use makefile as well as alternatives that don't.
[expletive] what a mess.
#Basile - I am not wedded to the use of Eclipse, and I am well aware of the benefits of scripts over point and click use of IDE configuration (not least among which is that you can source-control the build process). I thank you for your reading list. Perhaps this is a silly (or premature) question but I have to ask: without an IDE like Eclipse that integrates an editor with a build tool, is it possible to do step-through debugging?
#bmargulies - I agree with you that there's probably something wrong with the toolchain definition but I lack the background and experience to conduct a meaningful investigation of that. As mentioned above, I had varying levels of success with different toolchains under Windows, so it is reasonable to conclude that the toolchain is a significant factor in the problem. Alas, I can't choose a MinGW toolchain under Linux.
Following Norm's advice I was able to compile foo.cpp from a command line. The hello world program executes with the desired behaviour, but I still don't know how g++ knew how to resolve iostream when the fancy IDE tool didn't.
Added a few more lines of code to foo and compiled it, to try out gdb. It works! Whoever would have imagined you could do step-through debugging with a teminal window! It's a bit clumsy though.
While Basile is clearly correct that a fancy IDE is not necessary, that's a bit like saying that I don't need my motorcycle because I can walk. I'll have a look at the other IDEs mentioned, but I suspect they will all make use of the same toolchains and therefore all be similarly afflicted by whatever I have misconfigured.
Basile, forgive me for moving the goalposts. My original goal was indeed "compile and run hello.cpp" but gdb was inevitably the next step. It works, and if this were the early 80s using a teletype at uni I would probably be pretty happy right now. But it's not the early eighties and I've spent the last decade with syntax-colouring, autocompletion, variable sniffing edit-and-continue debugging so (ungrateful sod that I am) now I want, well, everything!
I've used eclipse c/C++ version before and had a lot of the same problems. For me, eclipse was very difficult to work with. I would recommend using the command line to compile c/c++ programs to start with. Its easier and important to understand how executable are created, in my opinion.
g++ -Wall -g Hello.cpp -o Hello
will produce an executable Hello. -Wall is a option that gives you more warnings when you are compiling your programs. Some warnings will crash your program if you don't fix them so its nice to see them up front. -g gives you the debugging symbols so that gdb will be able to step through the program step by step.
When you do get into gdb by using gdb Hello you can check out this gdb cheatsheet.
Once you start writing programs with more than one source file you're going to need to understand the two main steps in compilation. The first step turns each individual source file into an object file. The next step links all the object files together to make an executable. This link might explain compiling and linking, obviously wikipedia is also a good source for that info.
You don't need a fancy IDE like Eclipse. The usual way of developing under Linux is to use several tools.
Use an editor like emacs or gedit to edit your helloworld.cpp file. Type emacs or gedit in your terminal to start the editor (possibly followed by helloworld.cpp i.e. the name of the edited file[s]).
Then, compile with the following command
g++ -Wall -g helloworld.cpp -o helloworld
that you type in your terminal. Improve your code till no warning is given. You might add -O after -g above if you want GCC to optimize (and -O2 or -O3 to optimize even more). You should ask GCC to optimize if you want to benchmark or release your binary executable program. Notice that g++ knows how to link the standard C++ library (libstdc++.so), and the headers are located in a standard location known to g++ (you could add a -v argument to g++ to make it show what is happenning). You'll need more arguments if you want to use additional libraries.
the order of arguments to g++ is important, particularly for -I options (include directories) and -l (libraries).
If you want to debug your program (avoid asking optimizations to GCC), type
gdb helloworld
which will run the debugger. Learn more about gdb (of course you can do step by step with gdb; you'll use the next, step, break, backtrace commands of gdb at first, and others -e.g. watch is very useful sometimes.)
If you want to run your program without a debugger, just type
./helloworld
Later, you'll want to develop a program in several compilation units. Learn to use a bulder like make for that. There are other builder programs, like omake and many others.
Read more about GCC (providing g++), Gnu Make, GDB (the gnu debugger), Emacs, GIT version control
I have configured my emacs to run make inside it by pressing the F12 key. You can compile under emacs if you want to.
For graphical user interface applications coded in C++, learn to use Qt.
PS. Linux is much more command line oriented that other systems. Believe us, this has incredible strengths. But it is a different way of working that on other systems, such as those sold by Microsoft.
PS. If you are fond of IDE, you could consider geany, anjuta, kate. However, few free software - coded in C or C++ - in a typical Linux distribution (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, ...) are built using these (or with Eclipse, which on Linux is often related to Java development). IMHO, this is significant.
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Is a Linux executable “compatible” with OS X?
I have some c++ code compiled using GLUT and OpenGL on os x.
It all works fine. I have it as a.out
Is there a way to send this to someone using os x? Will there be some weird dependencies?
Can I send it to someone using linux?
I doubt I can do either which is why I'm asking on here. I looked around on google but couldn't find anything useful, I'm probably not searching for the right stuff
thanks
OS X and Linux have completely different binary formats (Mach-O/Universal Binary and ELF respectively), so no, a program compiled on OS X won't run on Linux unless you cross-compiled it.
If you compiled your code using static linking, then another OS X user will be able to use it just fine. However, bearing in mind that I know very little about GLUT or OpenGL, I'd bet good money that those are dynamic libraries, and thus whoever you send it to will need to have the same libraries installed in the same place in order to be able to use your compiled code.
otool -L will display the linkage dependencies of your executable, FYI.
It should work to send it to someone using the same version of OS X and the same computer chip as you. It may even be possible on OS X to cross-compile to a universal binary that works on Intel and PowerPC chips, but you'll still be limited to OS X.
To get a working executable for Linux, you'll need to compile it on Linux (or use a cross-compiler, but that could be more difficult than it's worth, especially if you have to do it repeatedly).
Or, as has been said already, you could just distribute the source code and let people compile it themselves. This may be the best approach, because C++ has no common binary format, so if different people use different compilers that have different forms of name-mangling, they'll all still get a program that works (if they compiled OpenGL or GLUT with one C++ compiler and then you compiled your program with another, they might not work together (I think)).
What about just sharing the source?
Are you afraid somebody's going to steal your precious work?
I wonder if someone managed to compile the Linux kernel with some other compiler than gcc. Or if someone have ever tried? Question may seem to be silly or academic, but it arose when I thought about answers to: Are C++ int operations atomic on the mips architecture
It seems that the atomicity of some operations depends not only on the cpu architecture, but also on used compiler. So, I wonder if in Linux world some compiler other than gcc even exists.
Linux explicitly depends on some gcc extensions, so any other compiler must be compatible with the needed extensions, in that case.
This is not a "no", since it's of course not impossible for a separate compiler vendor/developer to track gcc's extensions, just a data point that might help you search.
At some point tcc would process and run the linux kernel source. SO that would be a yes, I guess.
::Hat tip to ephemient in the comments.::
The LLVM developers are trying to compile it with clang. The meta-bug on compiling the Linux kernel with clang has more details (the dependency tree for that meta-bug shows how little seems to be left).
There have been some efforts (and patches) to compile an early version of the 2.6 kernel with icc.
Yup. I've done this. See [cfe-dev] Clang builds a working Linux Kernel (Boots to RL5 with SMP, networking and X, self hosts).
IBM's compiler was able to do it some Linux versions ago, but I'm not sure about now, nor am I sure of how well IBM optimized the kernel as instructed. All I know is, they got it to build.
As Linux is self hosting (with its own libc) and has been developed from the start with gcc (and gcc cross compilers), its sort of silly to use anything else.
I think mainly, playing nice with preprocessor macros and instructed optimizations is the biggest obstacle (not even getting into a departure from gas), as GNU has basically written the book on the above, and extended it. Beyond that, Linux tunes its optimizations to work with gcc, for instance, don't get caught using 'volatile' in the kernel without a damn good reason. Using inline and actually having the compiler agree is another challenge.
Linus is the first one to call GCC an &*#$ hole, which makes for a better compiler.
This is why we have the great GNU/Linux debate.
Many, many, many years ago, it was actually possible to compile the kernel with g++, and as far as I remember part of the motivation was because C++ had stronger type check, not necessarily to have g++ to produce object files. But as Neil Butterworth have pointed out, Linus is not particular fond of C++, and there is zero chance that this ever will be possible again.
EKOPath 4 Compiler, not now. but probably with some minor patches
https://github.com/path64/repositories
http://www.pathscale.com/ekopath-compiler-suite
I am just now working on compile Linux kernel using Open64 for MIPS archtecture, and some other guys are now just working for make Open64 can build for X86 arch. Now the kernel can partly run, and still have Run fail errors.
However for the atomic problem, at least i have not come up with it. And I do not think it is really a problem.The reasons are:
The Linux kernel have already been a collection of source code, which can successfully build with GCC, so it is only the compiler's problem if it can not build it, or the built kernel runs fail.
If a compiler want to successfully build Linux kernel, it should obide the GNU C Extension, and this extension will give a clear discription of what a atomic operation is, so such a compile only need to generate code according to this extension.
My non-technical guess: The Linux Kernel can't currently (2009) be compiled with any compiler other than the GNU compiler, gcc.
I say this on the basis that I've heard Richard Stallman, with some conviction, say Linux should be called GNU/Linux because the kernel is "only 1 part of the operating system" and I'm guessing he would not be able to say this if the kernel was non-dependant on GNU (e.g. a tonne of embedded devices run a Linux OS without any GNU software).
As I said, just a guess, let me know if I'm wrong...