C++ Windows to Linux - what do I need to know?

Question

I'm a bit stuck on trying to port my code from Windows to Linux. I created a Bluetooth based program, which seems to work in Windows well, that I need to get working in Ubuntu.

Unfortunately the computer with Linux on isn't mine, so I can't have any easy hacks using Wine or other massive compiler altering methods, I really need some advice on porting my code across so it'll be recognised and work in the different OS.

The computer does have code::blocks installed, which from what I understand is fairly useful in converting some things for cross-OS compiling, but I'm not getting too far.

The original code was written in Visual Studio 2013 and understandably it doesn't play nice in code::blocks. I'm getting a lot of 'can't find header' errors, but I don't think simply finding all the missing headers and copying them across will work (will it?).

I need some suggestions on the easiest, stand alone solution for my situation. By standalone I mean I want to get as much of the needed changes and libraries in my project, rather than change/install lots of things on the Linux machine.

I don't really know where to start and searches online don't seem to be too helpful.

Thanks!

Answer 1

First of all, I suggest you examine your Windows code, and use the PIMPL idiom (also here, here, ...) in your classes to isolate all platform-dependent code to separate windows and linux class implementations. Your main platform-independent class then will simply delegate to each implementation at compile time using preprocessor macros to include the appropriate platform implementation header and cpp files. Beyond this, many runtime functions, as implemented in Visual Studio as either Microsoft-specific, or have been 'modified' and are no longer compatible or even have the same names as the standard ones you will find in linux. For these, you'll need to use a platform.h and platform.cpp file, with separate sections for the two operating systems, containing the missing functions in either macro-defined form (i.e. windows: strnicmp(), linux: strncasecomp() ), or write the missing ones yourself. Example:

// Linux section ...
#ifdef LINUX
#define strnicmp strncasecmp
#endif

The final work involved depends on how many windows-specific calls you have in your code.