I'm researching some of the Nuget stuff. I'm wondering if Nuget is appropriate for distributing .exe commands -- or for that matter if Nuget is only intended only to be used for references to a project (of course you could probably also link to an exe instead of a dll -- IIRC). Obviously, I can easily create a console app and then reference Nuget packages, but I'm wondering if this should always be necessary. Also, it seems that unlike gems, there isn't a local repo of gems, so I feel like .exe(s) are not the intended use for Nuget packages, but I don't see why they need to be limited in this fashion -- or am I missing something?
You can include executable programs in you NuGet packages. From Creating and Publishing a Package:
tools - The tools folder of a package is for powershell scripts and programs
accessible from the Package Manager Console. After the folder is copied to the target
project, it is added to the `$env:Path (PATH) environment variable.
There are a few things you should be aware of, though, if you choose to do this:
You are correct that, unlike RubyGems, NuGet doesn't have the concept of system- or machine-level packages; packages are either targeted to a single project, or (more rarely) to a solution. So this executable will be placed in the package's folder for each solution in which it is used.
The NuGet Visual Studio extension adds the path of the package's tools folder to the PATH environment variable of its console, so you can conveniently execute the programs therein. Outside of Visual Studio, when using other NuGet clients (such as nuget.exe), there won't be any automatic PATH handling, so you'd have to handle getting a path to the program.
This NuGet feature is designed for scripts and executable programs that are somehow related to developing a project (e.g., code generators, tools that manipulate projects files, tools that compliment frameworks like emulators or development servers, etc.). While you can certainly use this feature in ways for which it wasn't designed, if you're looking to deliver system programs that aren't really related to project development, you might want to look at Chocolatey, "a Machine Package Manager, somewhat like apt-get, but built with windows in mind."
Related
While exploring about the platform setup for OpenCASCADE, I came to know about WOK commands which arent needed for CMake build system to use with OpenCASCADE
However another option of genproj tool (for which I havent yet found any exe but DLLs..) to be used with MSVC+ in built compiler so that we dont need any gcc installation
Whats the difference between the twos and which one is better and easier??
Also suggest me how to download and install and setup genproj on windows
OCCT project provided the following build systems:
CMake. This is the main building system since OCCT 7.0.0.
It allows building OCCT for almost every supported target platform.
WOK. This was an in-house building system used by OCCT before 7.0.0 release.
The tool handled classes defined in CDL (CAS.CADE definition language) files (WOK generated C++ header files from CDL) and supported building in a distributed environment (e.g. local WOK setup builds only modified source files and reused unmodified binary / object files from local network). WOK support has been discontinued since OCCT 7.5.0 and unlikely will be able building up-to-date OCCT sources (although project structure remains compatible with WOK).
genproj. This is a Tcl script allowing to generate project for building OCCT using Visual Studio (2010+), Code::Blocks, XCode and Qt Creator. This script has been initially extracted from WOK package (where it was implemented as command wgenproj in it's shell) and now maintained independently from it.
qmake. Experimental adm/qmake solution can be opened directly from QtCreator without CMake plugin (the project files will be generated recursively by qmake). Although header files generation (filling in inc folder) still should be done using genproj (qmake scripting capabilities were found too limited for this staff).
genproj doesn't require any DLLs or EXE files - it comes with OCCT itself and requires Tcl interpreter. On Windows platform it can be executed with genconf.bat and genproj.bat batch scripts in the root of OCCT source code folder. At first launch it will ask to put a path to tclsh.exe.
While CMake is the main building tool for OCCT project, genproj remains maintained and used by (some) developers - mostly due to personal habits and hatred to CMake. They differences of genproj from CMake that could be considered as advantages in some cases:
Generated project files can be moved to another location / computer without necessity to re-generate them.
Simplified 3rd-party dependency search tool genconf with GUI based on Tcl/Tk.
Batch-script environment/configuration files (env.bat and custom.bat), although CMake script in OCCT emulates similar files.
Generated Visual Studio solution contains Debug+Release and 32bit/64bit configurations.
Running Draw Harness and regression tests can be started directly from Visual Studio (without building any INSTALL target).
No problems with CMakeCache.txt.
Limitations of genproj:
No CMake configuration files. Other CMake-based projects would not be able re-using configuration files to simplify 3rd-party setup.
Regeneration of project files should be called explicitly.
Out-of-source builds are not supported (however, each configuration is put into dedicated sub-folder).
No INSTALL target.
No PCH (pre-compiler header file) generation.
It should be noted, that several attempts have been done to make compiler / linker flags consistent between CMake and genproj, but in reality they may be different.
I'm working on a project, which targets both Windows and Linux (and possible in the future MacOS). It consists of some applications with several shared libraries. It is written in modern C++ and modern CMake. It also uses 3rd-party libraries like Qt, OpenCV, Boost, GraphicsMagick, samplerate, sndfile. Those dependencies are handled through Conan package manager. I'm building both on Linux (Ubuntu 18.04, GCC 8.1) and Windows (via WSL - also Ubuntu 18.04, MinGW-w64 8.1). I'm using fairly recent versions of 3rd-party libraries with custom built options (strictly speaking - different versions than available on Ubuntu's APT, e.g. Qt v5.11.3, or custom built of GraphicsMagick)
I'm using CPack. On Windows I'm building NSIS installer, but on Linux I would like to use DEB generator (may be other if needed). All of my targets (written apps and shared libs) have appropriate CMake's INSTALL configurations, so they are copied correctly into the generated installers (component based installation). The real problem comes with packaging of 3rd-party dependencies.
Problem
Strictly speaking, I have no idea, how to do it well using CMake+CPack+Conan, both on Linux and Windows. I've read a lot of articles and posts, but I'm stucked. I would like to have something, that automatically bundles into the installer all 3rd party libraries used by project with needed plugins and, what is the most important, with needed system/compiler libraries (libgomp, libstdc++ and so on).
Possible solution
To my surprise, on Windows, this task is fairly easy, because every DLL used by app (my libs, 3rd-party libs and system/compiler libs) needs to be located where executable is. I'm engaging Conan into this, by importing all used DLLs into bin directory. In the end, in most naive way of packaging, I will just copy the bin directory into the installer and it should work. But I'm not sure, if this approach is OK.
On Linux, things are more complicated. First, there is arleady a package manager. Unfortunately, libraries/compilers available there are too old for me (e.g. on APT there is only Qt 5.9.6 ) and are built using different compile options. So, the only way for me is to ship them with my software (like in Windows). There are also issues with searching for dynamic libraries by ld, RPATH handling and so on. At the moment, the only solution I see is to write something like 'launcher' for my app, which sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH before program starts. After that, in this case we can just copy bin or lib directory to the DEB installer and this should work. But still, I don't know if this is correct approach.
Other solutions
I've also looked into other solutions. One of them was BundleUtilities from CMake. It doesn't work for me. It has a lot of problems in recognizing, whether some library is system or local one. Especially in WSL, where it stucked in processing dependencies to USER32.dll, KERNEL32.dll. BundleUtilities in Windows worked for me only with MSYS, but in MSYS I've failed to compile some 3rd-party libraries (GraphicsMagicks via Conan) and that's the reason, why I'm using WSL.
Summary
I'm looking for good and verified method of packaging C++ projects with multiple apps, libs and shipped 3rd-party libs, both for Windows and Linux. How are you doing things like this? Are you just copying bin and/or lib dirs to the installers? How (in terms of CMake/CPack code) are you doing that? INSTALL(DIRECTORY ...), or similar? I'm not sure, but I think that this problem should be already solved in the industry. ;)
Thanks for all suggestions.
First, Conan is a package manager for development, not for distribution, that's why you didn't find an easy way to solve your problem. Second, most of discussions are made at Conan issue, including bugs and questions. There you will find a big community + Conan devs which are very helpful.
with needed system/compiler libraries
This is not part of Conan. Why you don't use static linkage for system libraries?
Talking about CPack, we have an open discussion about it usage with Conan: https://github.com/conan-io/conan/issues/5655
Please, join us.
I see few options for your case:
on package method, run self.copy and all dependencies from self.cpp_deps, which includes all libraries, so you can run Cpack
Use Conan deploy generator to deploy all artifacts, and using a hook you can run cpack or any other installer tool
Out friend SSE4 is writing a new blog post about Deployment + Conan, I think it can help you a lot. You can read a preview here.
Regards!
I have a software that is coded in C#. It depends on two(!) third party dll which require Visual C++ 2008 and Visual C++ 2005 redistribute. Originally the installer was built in InnoSetup with all "vs200x_sp1_vcredist_x??.exe" embedded and run on install time. However since it lacks of some advanced features we decided to migrate to Wix Toolset.
The problem is, MSI was running in a more restricted environment, so I didn't figure out what is the best way to require those redistributable file being executed properly. I was tried to use merge modules instead but it didn't work - I can see that the files were installed but dependency walker shows that dll is still not link to the right version.
I think that WinSxS makes things worse at least in this case, since the software keep failing with some error message regarding "Windows Side by Side configiration (14001)" when I use the merge module approach.
So the question is:
Are there any way to build a MSI that runs a exe that install some prerequisites? I wouldn't mind those prerequisites being downloaded or just embedded.
I know that WinSxS information is stored in the manifest of the dll. So if I was permitted to remove the manifest information by the third party company, and use dynamic dll loading instead the problem could be resolved. However is this legitimate? Since I will then need to embedded the Microsoft dlls directally in the msi.
I have noticed one of the dll's manifest says its required version is "9.0.21022.8" but the one in my MSM file is "9.0.30729.6161". Is this the issue? If so can I resolve the issue by I modifying the manifest to allow the right version? I don't think this will cause the dll not working, anyway.
The msi file should install only your software. If you need to install pre-requisites, you should use a bootstrapper for it. Bootstrapper's responsibility is to install pre-requisites and it's not a task of your msi.
If you see that wix bootstrapper is complex you can try on a simple bootstrapper like the dotnet installer bootstraper. you can download it from
http://dblock.github.io/dotnetinstaller/
I have an application that uses the ms vc++ runtime. How should I install it on the end-user's system if it is not present? I was thinking of bundling it with the installer... but how would I do that as far as what to include? Is there some silent installer? If so, where can it be found? I can't seem to find it in the Windows SDK.
There is an interesting post about deploying the runtime libraries on the Visual C++ blog. The post is about VC8 so I'm not sure all the recommendations apply to VC9.
Here are your options according to Microsoft:
Use an .msi installer including the .MSM files for the VC
libraries you're using. These MSM
files install the libraries globally.
They also keep a reference count so
that the libraries are removed when
the last application using them gets
uninstalled.
Use "app-local"
deployment i.e. copy the
libraries and manifest files in your
application directory. This is a simpler
solution if you don't use an .msi
installer. Your app should still use the
system version of the libraries if they are more
up-to-date than your own.
Link everything statically (and avoid crt usage across dll boundaries)
Another option Microsoft discourage you from using is running the Visual C++ redist installer from your own installer.
I'm not sure what their reasons are. It will take a few extra megabytes and will not be reference counted but it still works very well AFAICT. You can pass the /q option to vc_redist_x86.exe to perform an unattended install (no user interaction).
It has it's own installation program. I've seen it usually run as a prereq step of a larger installer.
One way or the other, you need to list it in your manifest. So you might just as well deliver it as via SxS in your application rather than try to deliver a global copy to the target machine. SxS is a big hard subject, sadly. Hopefully someone will supply an answer with more details and I'll delete this one.
I'm developing in an environment that is severely constrained, but the developers also have tight control over.
VCRedist_x86.exe - A 4Mb redistributable - is no fun (four hours to transfer). I'd really prefer to just redistribute MFC90.dll, msvcm90.dll, msvcp90.dll and msvcr90.dll - that's more like 2Mb. However, Redistributing Visual C++ Files says:
It is not supported to redistribute C/C++ applications that are built without a manifest. Visual C++ libraries cannot be used by C/C++ applications without a manifest binding the application to these libraries. For more information, see Choosing a Deployment Method.
My original plan of copying the DLLs into the program's working directory doesn't seem to
work in this brave new world of manifests.
My next guess is to bodge up the registry entries required to populate the files into the WinSxS directory and populate it myself (rather than using the 4 meg program).
[edit] The software is frequently updated, so DLLs are strongly preferred to static linking. [/edit]
How can I sucessfully distribute the necessary files but keep the overhead down?
[I'm the current SxS maintainer at Microsoft]
I would strongly suggest against removing the publicKeyToken attribute from manifests. Private deployment of the dlls will work just fine with this attribute left intact.
However, removing it will prevent your app from benefiting from security updates should there be a newer version of the CRT installed centrally on the target machine, as the dependencies will no longer match up.
So, to summarize: it's safe to embed your manifest, with the default. Copy the CRT manifest + DLL files directly into your executable's directory, with no edits. That's it. Compatible Win2k+.
We use this: Howto: Deploy VC2008 apps without installing vcredist_x86.exe
Essentially
Don't embed a manifest in your exe files.
Copy the C++ DLLs and their manifests to your app's directory.
Remove the "publicKeyToken" from all manifests (yours and Microsoft's).
If necessary, change the version info in your app's manifest files to match the Microsoft manifest files (or vice versa)
Specify /MT (Multithreaded) for the "runtime library" setting in the compiler property page. This statically links against the runtime library so you don't have to install the redistributable.
Install them as private assemblies. See here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235291.aspx
Note that if you don't need all of the DLLs provided you can modify the manifest files to only reference the ones you need.