I wonder if it is possible to make an Objective-C project (no UI, no simulator is needed, hosted on Github) to be built on Travis?
Current Travis docs seems not to contain any information regarding the option to have Objective-C projects built on Travis.
But Building a C Project says that:
Travis VMs are 32 bit and currently provide
gcc 4.6
clang 3.1
core GNU build toolchain (autotools, make), cmake, scons
and that default test script is run like
./configure && make && make test
So, to rephrase the subject question:
Do any workarounds exist to make SenTestingKit test suite, that my project currently uses, behave like a C test suite, so it could be treated as such by Travis VM?
NOTE 1: Here is the list of resources, which seem to be related to the question:
Compiling Objective-C without a GUI. It claims that Both gcc and clang compile Objective-C 2.0 and that sounds very promising!
NOTE 2: I suspect that it is possible to use some testing tool other than SenTestingKit:
this tool should be easy to be run without a GUI and without xcodebuild etc: I've opened related issue for that: Is there any non-Xcode-based command line testing tool for Objective-C?. I am even thinking about writing an easy one just to be used by my project.
A few days Travis announced that they are now also supporting objetive-c projects. See Building An Objective-C Project for more info.
Update
It is even possible to make Travis launch the simulator so that you can run application tests and UI related stuff. I required a little extra work, but it's pretty straight forward. I wrote about it here.
I have compiled shared libraries dynamically linked against libstdc++.so using GLIBCXX_3.4.11. I want to send my code to someone whose stdc++ library is only of version 3.4.10. Rather than ask him to update his library version (this is a software customer, so I can't assume they'll be willing or able to change system files) I would like to ship the appropriate version of libstdc++.so, placed in a lib folder with the directory location of my code. How do I get my own code to use the appropriate (later) version? I find that /etc/ld.so.conf includes the directory /lib64, where an offending older version of libstdc++.so resides. Setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH does not override this. This seems to deviate from the advertised behavior. Any idea why this is happening? How do I complete my rather simple task?
Thanks.
I understand that this question is old, but I found it while trying to sort out my own linking trouble which was similar. You will have to build your program against a version of libstdc++ which is compatible with your colleague's version of the library. The easiest solution, of course, is to link against his version of the library so he doesn't need to make special tweaks on his side to link your library.
To do this, you will want to install a version of GCC which can build binary compatible libraries so you can actually link against his version of libstdc++. GLIBCXX_3.4.11 is from gcc-4.4 and later, so you will need gcc-4.3. Build your program using this and you should be in good shape.
You can consult the following page for a list of library ABI compatabilities:
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/abi.html
You could also build an rpm/deb which requires the version of libstdc++ you already have and if it's not available, refuse to install. This gives you a bit of an interface which gives him a promise that if his system is setup with the correct dependencies, he can use your library. In that sense, it's like a loose SLA for your library in what you do and don't support.
Hope that helps!
How can I know, whether an external library can be compiled to work on a different platform? the library for instance is tesseract-ocr
And if it possible, how do I do this?? (Basically I would like to create a Qt application that uses this library)
To find out, try building the library yourself. At the moment your question is quite broad. Post new questions when you have something more specific to ask.
If building the library fails, it is most probably due to some unsupported dependencies that you need to port first yourself.
Porting to Maemo is probably straightforward as it is a Debian-based environment and supports all the build tools such as autotools.
Symbian doesn't have autotools. Perhaps the fastest way to get started there is to first configure and build the library on e.g. cygwin and then generate the required bld.inf and .mmp files to build it on Symbian.
You can link your Qt application to regular C/C++ libraries. Just include the necessary header files in your code and link to the library using LIBS += -lfoo in your .pro file.
I'm currently trying to get g++ working, and looking at http://gcc.gnu.org/install/build.html, I can't seem to find where it says how "to perform a 3-stage bootstrap of the compiler". Where would I find this information?
(I'm on a mac, in case that matters.)
After running configure, you do make bootstrap
You cannot bootstrap GCC without an already-functioning compiler on your platform:
From the prerequisites page:
ISO C90 compiler
Necessary to bootstrap GCC, although versions of GCC prior to 3.4 also allow bootstrapping with a traditional (K&R) C compiler.
And to preempt your next question, you also need a functioning compiler (usually GCC) in order to build Clang+LLVM.
It might be possible to do what you're trying so hard to do, by cross-compiling GCC from some other platform (see this section of the documentation). But I imagine this is not for the feint of heart, and you'd be far, far better off simply updating your copy of Mac OS X to the latest version with Xcode support.
From that link:
For a native build, the default configuration is to perform a 3-stage bootstrap of the compiler when `make' is invoked.
It seems to me that if your configuration isn't tweaked, it should do it out of the box. Just type make.
More specifically, you have to download the source code, and follow the instructions in that whole tutorial in order to build.
A side note - I am finding it hard to believe that there is no easy way to get GCC on an OSX box without having the installation media. That sounds really annoying :)
Edit:
If you are simply trying to write C++ on OSX, you could install one of many other IDEs. If you are lucky, they may come with their own compiler. Here is a list of alternatives to XCode:
http://alternativeto.net/desktop/xcode/?profile=mac&platform=mac
What would be the best way to write Objective-C on the Windows platform?
Cygwin and gcc? Is there a way I can somehow integrate this into Visual Studio?
Along those lines - are there any suggestions as to how to link in and use the Windows SDK for something like this. Its a different beast but I know I can write assembly and link in the Windows DLLs giving me accessibility to those calls but I don't know how to do this without googling and getting piecemeal directions.
Is anyone aware of a good online or book resource to do or explain these kinds of things?
Expanding on the two previous answers, if you just want Objective-C but not any of the Cocoa frameworks, then gcc will work on any platform. You can use it through Cygwin or get MinGW. However, if you want the Cocoa frameworks, or at least a reasonable subset of them, then GNUStep and Cocotron are your best bets.
Cocotron implements a lot of stuff that GNUStep does not, such as CoreGraphics and CoreData, though I can't vouch for how complete their implementation is on a specific framework. Their aim is to keep Cocotron up to date with the latest version of OS X so that any viable OS X program can run on Windows. Because GNUStep typically uses the latest version of gcc, they also add in support for Objective-C++ and a lot of the Objective-C 2.0 features.
I haven't tested those features with GNUStep, but if you use a sufficiently new version of gcc, you might be able to use them. I was not able to use Objective-C++ with GNUStep a few years ago. However, GNUStep does compile from just about any platform. Cocotron is a very mac-centric project. Although it is probably possible to compile it on other platforms, it comes XCode project files, not makefiles, so you can only compile its frameworks out of the box on OS X. It also comes with instructions on compiling Windows apps on XCode, but not any other platform. Basically, it's probably possible to set up a Windows development environment for Cocotron, but it's not as easy as setting one up for GNUStep, and you'll be on your own, so GNUStep is definitely the way to go if you're developing on Windows as opposed to just for Windows.
For what it's worth, Cocotron is licensed under the MIT license, and GNUStep is licensed under the LGPL.
You can use Objective C inside the Windows environment. If you follow these steps, it should be working just fine:
Visit the GNUstep website and download GNUstep MSYS Subsystem (MSYS for GNUstep), GNUstep Core (Libraries for GNUstep), and GNUstep Devel
After downloading these files, install in that order, or you will have problems with configuration
Navigate to C:\GNUstep\GNUstep\System\Library\Headers\Foundation1 and ensure that Foundation.h exists
Open up a command prompt and run gcc -v to check that GNUstep MSYS is correctly installed (if you get a file not found error, ensure that the bin folder of GNUstep MSYS is in your PATH)
Use this simple "Hello World" program to test GNUstep's functionality:
#include <Foundation/Foundation.h>
int main(void)
{
NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
NSLog(#"Hello World!.");
[pool drain];
return;
}
Go back to the command prompt and cd to where you saved the "Hello World" program and then compile it:2
gcc -o helloworld.exe <HELLOWORLD>.m -I /GNUstep/GNUstep/System/Library/Headers -L /GNUstep/GNUstep/System/Library/Libraries -std=c99 -lobjc -lgnustep-base -fconstant-string-class=NSConstantString
Finally, from the command prompt, type helloworld to run it
All the best, and have fun with Objective-C!
NOTES:
I used the default install path - adjust your command line accordingly
Ensure the folder path of yours is similar to mine, otherwise you will get an error
Also:
The Cocotron is an open source project which aims to implement a cross-platform Objective-C API similar to that described by Apple Inc.'s Cocoa documentation. This includes the AppKit, Foundation, Objective-C runtime and support APIs such as CoreGraphics and CoreFoundation.
http://www.cocotron.org/
WinObjC? Windows Bridge for iOS (previously known as ‘Project Islandwood’).
Windows Bridge for iOS (also referred to as WinObjC) is a Microsoft open source project that provides an Objective-C development environment for Visual Studio/Windows. In addition, WinObjC provides support for iOS API compatibility. While the final release will happen later this fall (allowing the bridge to take advantage of new tooling capabilities that will ship with the upcoming Visual Studio 2015 Update),
The bridge is available to the open-source community now in its current state. Between now and the fall. The iOS bridge as an open-source project under the MIT license. Given the ambition of the project, making it easy for iOS developers to build and run apps on Windows.
Salmaan Ahmed has an in-depth post on the Windows Bridge for iOS http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2015/08/06/windows-bridge-for-ios-lets-open-this-up/ discussing the compiler, runtime, IDE integration, and what the bridge is and isn’t. Best of all, the source code for the iOS bridge is live on GitHub right now.
The iOS bridge supports both Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 apps built for x86 and x64 processor architectures, and soon we will add compiler optimizations and support for ARM, which adds mobile support.
I have mixed feelings about the Cocotron project. I'm glad they are releasing source code and sharing but I don't feel that they are doing things the easiest way.
Examples.
Apple has released the source code to the objective-c runtime, which includes properties and garbage collection. The Cocotron project however has their own implementation of the objective-c runtime. Why bother to duplicate the effort? There is even a Visual Studio Project file that can be used to build an objc.dll file. Or if you're really lazy, you can just copy the DLL file from an installation of Safari on Windows.
They also did not bother to leverage CoreFoundation, which is also open sourced by Apple. I posted a question about this but did not receive an answer.
I think the current best solution is to take source code from multiple sources (Apple, CocoTron, GnuStep) and merge it together to what you need. You'll have to read a lot of source but it will be worth the end result.
I'm aware this is a very old post, but I have found a solution which has only become available more recently AND enables nearly all Objective-C 2.0 features on the Windows platform.
With the advent of gcc 4.6, support for Objective-C 2.0 language features (blocks, dot syntax, synthesised properties, etc) was added to the Objective-C compiler (see the release notes for full details). Their runtime has also been updated to work almost identically to Apple's own Objective-C 2.0 runtime. In short this means that (almost) any program that will legitimately compile with Clang on a Mac will also compile with gcc 4.6 without modification.
As a side-note, one feature that is not available is dictionary/array/etc literals as they are all hard-coded into Clang to use Apple's NSDictionary, NSArray, NSNumber, etc classes.
However, if you are happy to live without Apple's extensive frameworks, you can.
As noted in other answers, GNUStep and the Cocotron provide modified versions of Apple's class libraries, or you can write your own (my preferred option).
MinGW is one way to get GCC 4.6 on the Windows platform, and can be downloaded from The MinGW website. Make sure when you install it you include the installation of C, C++, Objective-C and Objective-C++. While optional, I would also suggest installing the MSYS environment.
Once installed, Objective-C 2.0 source can be compiled with:
gcc MyFile.m -lobjc -std=c99 -fobjc-exceptions -fconstant-string-class=clsname (etc, additional flags, see documentation)
MinGW also includes support for compiling native GUI Windows applications with the -mwindows flag. For example:
g++ -mwindows MyFile.cpp
I have not attempted it yet, but I imagine if you wrap your Objective-C classes in Objective-C++ at the highest possible layer, you should be able to successfully intertwine native Windows GUI C++ and Objective-C all in the one Windows Application.
Check out WinObjC:
https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC
It's an official, open-source project by Microsoft that integrates with Visual Studio + Windows.
If you just want to experiment, there's an Objective-C compiler for .NET (Windows) here: qckapp
You can get an objective c compiler that will work with Windows and play nice with Visual Studio 2008\2010 here.
open-c flite
Just download the latest source. You don't need to build all of CF-Lite there is a solution called objc.sln. You will need to fix a few of the include paths but then it will build just fine. There is even a test project included so you can see some objective-c .m files being compiled and working in visual studio. One sad thing is it only works with Win32 not x64. There is some assembly code that would need to be written for x64 for it to support that.
A recent attempt to port Objective C 2.0 to Windows is the Subjective project.
From the Readme:
Subjective is an attempt to bring Objective C 2.0 with ARC support to
Windows.
This project is a fork of objc4-532.2, the Objective C runtime that
ships with OS X 10.8.5. The port can be cross-compiled on OS X using
llvm-clang combined with the MinGW linker.
There are certain limitations many of which are a matter of extra
work, while others, such as exceptions and blocks, depend on more
serious work in 3rd party projects. The limitations are:
• 32-bit only - 64-bit is underway
• Static linking only - dynamic linking is underway
• No closures/blocks - until libdispatch supports them on Windows
• No exceptions - until clang supports them on Windows
• No old style GC - until someone cares...
• Internals: no vtables, no gdb support, just plain malloc, no
preoptimizations - some of these things will be available under the
64-bit build.
• Currently a patched clang compiler is required; the patch adds
-fobjc-runtime=subj flag
The project is available on Github, and there is also a thread on the Cocotron Group outlining some of the progress and issues encountered.
Get GNUStep here
Get MINGW here
Install MINGW
Install GNUStep
Then Test
If you are comfortable with Visual Studio environment,
Small project: jGRASP with gcc
Large project: Cocotron
I heard there are emulators, but I could find only Apple II Emulator http://virtualapple.org/. It looks like limited to games.
First of all, forget about GNUStep tools. Neither ProjectManager nor ProjectCenter can be called an IDE. With all due respect, it looks like guys from GNUStep project are stuck in the late 80-s (which is when NeXTSTEP first appeared).
Vim
ctags support Objective-C since r771 (be sure to pick the pre-release 5.9 version and add --langmap=ObjectiveC:.m.h to the command line, see here), so you'll have decent code completion/tag navigation.
Here's a short howto on adding Objective-C support to Vim tagbar plugin.
Emacs
The same applies to etags shipped with modern Emacsen, so you can start with Emacs Objective C Mode. YASnippet will provide useful templates:
and if you want something more intelligent than the basic tags-based code completion, take a look at this question.
Eclipse
CDT supports Makefile-based projects:
-- so technically you can build your Objective-C projects out of the box (on Windows, you'll need the Cygwin or MinGW toolchain). The only problem is the code editor which will report plenty of errors against what it thinks is a pure C code (on-the-fly code checking can be turned off, but still...). If you want proper syntax highlighting, you can add Eclim to your Eclipse and enjoy all the good features of both Eclipse and Vim (see above).
Another promising Eclipse plugin is Colorer, but it doesn't support Objective-C as of yet. Feel free to file a feature request though.
SlickEdit
SlickEdit, among other features of a great IDE, does support Objective-C. While it is fairly complex to learn (not as complex as Emacs though), I believe this is your best option provided you don't mind purchasing it (the price is quite affordable).
Additionally, it has an Eclipse plugin which can be used as an alternative to the stand-alone editor.
KDevelop
Rumor has it there exists a KDevelop patch (15 year old, but who cares?). I personally don't think KDevelop is feature-superior compared to Emacsen, so I wouldn't bother trying it.
The above also applies to Objective-C development on Linux, since all of the tools mentioned are more or less portable.
As of 2021, the GNUstep Windows MSVC Toolchain allows to integrate Objective-C code in any Windows app, including Visual Studio projects using LLVM/Clang. This includes support for Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) and Objective-C 2.0 features such as blocks.
The project includes the Foundation, CoreFoundation, and libdispatch libraries from GNUstep. It does currently not include any UI framework such as AppKit or UIKit, but it can be used to e.g. write a Windows-specific UI with cross-platform business logic written in Objective-C.