On Fri, 17 Jul 1998, Michael Laing wrote: > I have a large utility program that I need to run under NT - is there a > cross-compiler for this purpose? > > Thanks, > Michael > >
Yeah, 'gcc' (assuming it is written in C). Cross-compiling really means compiling a set of source files into an executable image that will run on a platform with a different CPU. This is very common in the embedded systems business (my work) in which you do software development on a Unix workstation, (less preferably) WinNT, or (even less perferably) some other box but the computer you are programming is something like a simgle board computer with a different CPU (like a Motorola 68040, 68360, 860, 68HC11, etc., etc.). The compiler running on the development workstation emits an executable image for the specific CPU that your target (the single board computer) is equiped with. You are really talking about using a 'native' compiler, one that emits an executable image for the same hardware architecture that it is being compiled on, and 'porting' your program to a different OS. So, you get your source files on the NT box and use your compiler/interpreter of choice (you haven't told us what language your program is written in) to cause that source to be converted into an executable image (this is the compiling and linking stages). We use the word 'port' to indicate that the software probably won't run unchanged on the new OS depending upon the extent to which OS facitilities are used and the difference between those facilities on the original OS vs. the new OS. I've written a LOT of Unix stuff (mostly for Sun OSs) and a LOT of embedded stuff (pSOS and VxWorks OSs) but not any Windows stuff (nor do I intend to, my employer willing), so I can't really give you any clue to what porting issues you might find going from Unix/Linux to NT. It really depends upon what your program does and its software architecture and what facilities from the OS it requires. If it requires very little from the OS, meaning that is uses mostly standard C library (again, assuming it is in C) stuff then it should be easy to port. Why not re-code it in Java, learn a cool language (if you aren't already Java fluent) and get the cross-platform stuff for free! -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
