CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cxcodegccllvm
ggkmath
ggkmath

Reputation: 4246

selecting c compiler and creating development environment

I need to write some C functions that will be called by a java program running on a CenOS Linux server, as part of a web application. The server is a hosted dedicated server sitting in another physical location, far away from me.

Do I need to develop the C stuff on the server directly, that is, doing development tunneling into the server? Or can I develop the C program on a Mac or Windows PC in my office, then once everything is working fine, store the final results on the server for use? If the latter, does it limit the choices for development environment in any way? That is, which compiler I should use, or any settings in the IDE or compiler I need to worry about since the development environment will be different than the production environment?

If I use Xcode version 3 on a Mac, it uses GCC by default, whereas Xcode version 4 uses LLVM-GCC to compile. Does the choice of compiler matter assuming I'm using C99 standard things? I don't want the code to be dependent on the development environment since I can't guarantee it'll stay the same in the future. Can I switch the compiler manually in Xcode somehow to verify the code works in GCC as well as LLVM?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 159

Answers (3)

user992364
user992364

Reputation: 452

Ignoring windows, things are pretty portable across mac/linux. If you develop it on mac in whatever development environment you want (I personally use TextWrangler and GCC from the command line.

Once you develop your software, it's a simple matter of copying the file to your remote server and compiling it there.

You may or may not need to change a few things. The only portability issue I've run into was mac's socket() using PF_ instead of AF_ (Mac will still accept AF_ but it doesn't advertise it in it's manpage, and other systems will not necessarily accept PF_) and sranddev() not being available on some systems; both of which were very easily resolvable.

If, however, you wanted to write the software directly on the remote box, its definitely not a hard thing to do, I would just ssh there and take your pick of text editors (usually vi or emacs) and compilers (usually gcc).

In general, for programs that are just traditional unix command line things, I tend to avoid Xcode as much as possible because it likes to hide things, and IMO its a good thing to actually understand what is going on behind the scenes. (Especially if you use other *nix systems.)

Upvotes: 2

Fred Foo
Fred Foo

Reputation: 363707

Does the choice of compiler matter assuming I'm using C99 standard things?

Yes: Microsoft, AFAIK, still doesn't fully support C99 (but maybe that's changed in the latest MSVC). Also, you have to resist the temptation of using non-standard features just because they are there. OTOH, a local build env might force you to write portable programs.

The choice depends on how your program is going to communicate with the larger system, but developing at least parts locally is probably the most convenient option.

Upvotes: 0

Dave Newton
Dave Newton

Reputation: 160251

Whatever you do, it will need to be recompiled on the server.

You can probably create code that's runnable/testable under both environments, although you may have to #ifdef around compatibility issues. How much of that, if any, depends a lot on what you're actually writing.

Upvotes: 0

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