CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++executableportabilityallegro4
RazelofHyrulez
RazelofHyrulez

Reputation: 35

How to create a portable executable with allegro 4.4.2

So I am creating a C++ program using the allegro version 4.4.2 library and I need to be able to produce an executable package which I can submit to a course instructor and have run on his computer without issues. I am developing the program using DevC++. If I am understanding this correctly so far, I need to link to a static library for allegro and then the executable should include the library info and thus the library itself is not necessary to have included in the executable package. I have also seen some recommendations regarding third party tools that produce executable packages, but these seem to be more general (not necessarily allegro compatible?) and I am hoping to avoid downloading more third party software.

I have tried linking to the static library liballegro-4.4.2-monolith-static-mt.a but for some reason when I do this I get a whole slew of undefined reference compile time errors. I have read that it is necessary to have #define ALLEGRO_STATICLINK included in the project, I have this statement at the top of my main source file but I am not sure if I am meant to define this somewhere in the project options instead?

Any guidance or link to resources which will help me solve my problem would be extremely appreciated! I am just getting into the meat of programming with C++ beginning to learn object oriented programming methods, I still occasionally struggle with the basics so thank you in advance for your help!

Backstory (if interested/relevant?): I am taking a Game AI programming course for which we need to create some example programs to demonstrate AI algorithms. The course specifies Java but I am most familiar with C++ and the course instructor says this is fine but I must be able to submit an executable to him which he can just run on his computer without issues. To best achieve what the course asks I feel the allegro library (which I already have installed) will be of great help, mostly for drawing graphics to the screen and such.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 262

Answers (1)

RazelofHyrulez
RazelofHyrulez

Reputation: 35

So I just ended up using a dynamically linked version of my program and including the appropriate .dll files which turned out to be a lot less work than I thought it would be.

Basically I just had to ensure the allegro-4.4.2-md.dll from the bin folder was included in the folder with the executable. I then sent off the package (the .exe compiled file and the needed supporting files such as bitmaps sound files etc) to a few friends and had them try to run it. They then gave me the warnings from their computers along the lines of "Test.exe cannot be run ****.dll cannot be found".

I searched the exact names of the dll files they were receiving warnings for in the folder with my game and voila it now seems to execute on whatever PC it is sent to.

Upvotes: 0

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