C++ cross-platform dynamic libraries for Linux and Windows

ccross platformshared-libraries

I am wanting to write some cross-platform library code.

I am creating a library both static and dynamic with most of the development done in Linux, I have got the static and shared library generated in Linux but now wanted to generate a Windows version of a static and dynamic library in the form of .lib and .dll using the same source code.

Is this possible? I'm a bit worried because I noticed generating Windows .dll files required using _dllspec or something similiar in your source code.

I am seeking the best and quickest solution to getting my code compiled on Windows. I don't need to do the compiling under Linux; I am happy to do it directly under Windows. Also I am using two external libraries which are Boost and Xerces XML which I have installed on both my Windows and Linux system so hopefully they shouldn't be a problem.

What I really want is to have a single source code copy that can be compiled under both Linux and Windows to generate libraries specific to each platform. I don't really care if I have to edit my code in favour of Windows or Linux as long as I can have a single source code copy.

Best Answer

In general, there are two issues you need to be concerned with:

The requirement that, on Windows, your DLL explicitly exports symbols that should be visible to the outside world (via __declspec(dllexport), and
Being able to maintain the build system (ideally, not having to maintain a separate makefile and Microsoft Visual C++ Project/Solution)

For the first, you will need to learn about __declspec(dllexport). On Windows only projects, typically this is implemented in the way I describe in my answer to this question. You can extend this a step further by making sure that your export symbol (such as MY_PROJECT_API) is defined but expands to nothing when building for Linux. This way, you can add the export symbols to your code as needed for Windows without affecting the linux build.

For the second, you can investigate some kind of cross-platform build system.

If you're comfortable with the GNU toolset, you may want to investigate libtool (perhaps in conjunction with automake and autoconf). The tools are natively supported on Linux and supported on Windows through either Cygwin or MinGW/MSYS. MinGW also gives you the option of cross-compiling, that is, building your native Windows binaries while running Linux. Two resources I've found helpful in navigating the Autotools (including libtool) are the "Autobook" (specifically the section on DLLs and Libtool) and Alexandre Duret-Lutz's PowerPoint slides.

As others have mentioned, CMake is also an option, but I can't speak for it myself.

Related Solutions

C++ – When to use dynamic vs. static libraries

Static libraries increase the size of the code in your binary. They're always loaded and whatever version of the code you compiled with is the version of the code that will run.

Dynamic libraries are stored and versioned separately. It's possible for a version of the dynamic library to be loaded that wasn't the original one that shipped with your code if the update is considered binary compatible with the original version.

Additionally dynamic libraries aren't necessarily loaded -- they're usually loaded when first called -- and can be shared among components that use the same library (multiple data loads, one code load).

Dynamic libraries were considered to be the better approach most of the time, but originally they had a major flaw (google DLL hell), which has all but been eliminated by more recent Windows OSes (Windows XP in particular).

C++ Dynamic Shared Library on Linux

myclass.h

#ifndef __MYCLASS_H__
#define __MYCLASS_H__

class MyClass
{
public:
  MyClass();

  /* use virtual otherwise linker will try to perform static linkage */
  virtual void DoSomething();

private:
  int x;
};

#endif

myclass.cc

#include "myclass.h"
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

extern "C" MyClass* create_object()
{
  return new MyClass;
}

extern "C" void destroy_object( MyClass* object )
{
  delete object;
}

MyClass::MyClass()
{
  x = 20;
}

void MyClass::DoSomething()
{
  cout<<x<<endl;
}

class_user.cc

#include <dlfcn.h>
#include <iostream>
#include "myclass.h"

using namespace std;

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  /* on Linux, use "./myclass.so" */
  void* handle = dlopen("myclass.so", RTLD_LAZY);

  MyClass* (*create)();
  void (*destroy)(MyClass*);

  create = (MyClass* (*)())dlsym(handle, "create_object");
  destroy = (void (*)(MyClass*))dlsym(handle, "destroy_object");

  MyClass* myClass = (MyClass*)create();
  myClass->DoSomething();
  destroy( myClass );
}

On Mac OS X, compile with:

g++ -dynamiclib -flat_namespace myclass.cc -o myclass.so
g++ class_user.cc -o class_user

On Linux, compile with:

g++ -fPIC -shared myclass.cc -o myclass.so
g++ class_user.cc -ldl -o class_user

If this were for a plugin system, you would use MyClass as a base class and define all the required functions virtual. The plugin author would then derive from MyClass, override the virtuals and implement create_object and destroy_object. Your main application would not need to be changed in any way.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C++ – When to use dynamic vs. static libraries

C++ Dynamic Shared Library on Linux

Related Topic