Objective-C and Windows

cocoaideobjective c

I am currently in a class that is developing applications in Objective-C and Cocoa. I was wondering if there was any way to build and compile Objective-C applications on Windows Vista. During class, we are able to use the Mac machines provided to us, but I was hoping to do some work outside of class, and I only have a Windows Vista machine available to me. I have installed GNUStep. I am looking for a GUI or an IDE that I could use. I have Eclipse, and I tried to install ObjectivEClipse, but that is only for a Mac machine too. Any other suggestions? Thanks.

Best Answer

The compiler is no problem, since gcc includes an Objectve-C frontend. You could simply install Cygwin and use it. the issue is about libraries.

The Cocoa system is very Apple proprietary; but it's a descendant from NeXTStep. For a while (when NeXT was even deeper in debts than Apple) it was named OpenStep, and available as a shell around the NT kernel. Around that time, the GNUStep project was started, and it seems it's still there.

Note, however, that any xxStep libraries gives only a NeXT-like GUI, very different from modern macs. Also, a lot of the newer capabilities are not only new GUI; but new APIs too and these won't be found there.

in short... it's easier to go with a mac.

Related Solutions

Objective-c – Generating random numbers in Objective-C

You should use the arc4random_uniform() function. It uses a superior algorithm to rand. You don't even need to set a seed.

#include <stdlib.h>
// ...
// ...
int r = arc4random_uniform(74);

The arc4random man page:

NAME
     arc4random, arc4random_stir, arc4random_addrandom -- arc4 random number generator

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <stdlib.h>

     u_int32_t
     arc4random(void);

     void
     arc4random_stir(void);

     void
     arc4random_addrandom(unsigned char *dat, int datlen);

DESCRIPTION
     The arc4random() function uses the key stream generator employed by the arc4 cipher, which uses 8*8 8
     bit S-Boxes.  The S-Boxes can be in about (2**1700) states.  The arc4random() function returns pseudo-
     random numbers in the range of 0 to (2**32)-1, and therefore has twice the range of rand(3) and
     random(3).

     The arc4random_stir() function reads data from /dev/urandom and uses it to permute the S-Boxes via
     arc4random_addrandom().

     There is no need to call arc4random_stir() before using arc4random(), since arc4random() automatically
     initializes itself.

EXAMPLES
     The following produces a drop-in replacement for the traditional rand() and random() functions using
     arc4random():

           #define foo4random() (arc4random() % ((unsigned)RAND_MAX + 1))

Objective-c – Shortcuts in Objective-C to concatenate NSStrings

An option:

[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/%@/%@", one, two, three];

Another option:

I'm guessing you're not happy with multiple appends (a+b+c+d), in which case you could do:

NSLog(@"%@", [Util append:one, @" ", two, nil]); // "one two"
NSLog(@"%@", [Util append:three, @"/", two, @"/", one, nil]); // three/two/one

using something like

+ (NSString *) append:(id) first, ...
{
    NSString * result = @"";
    id eachArg;
    va_list alist;
    if(first)
    {
        result = [result stringByAppendingString:first];
        va_start(alist, first);
        while (eachArg = va_arg(alist, id)) 
        result = [result stringByAppendingString:eachArg];
        va_end(alist);
    }
    return result;
}