A great strength of C++ is the ability to target multiple platforms without sacrificing performance. If you are using the same codebase for multiple targets, then CMake is the most common solution for building your software. You can use Visual Studio for your C++ cross platform development when using CMake without needing to create or generate Visual Studio projects. Just open the folder with your sources in Visual Studio (File > Open Folder). Visual studio express for mac. Visual Studio will recognize CMake is being used, then use metadata CMake produces to configure IntelliSense and builds automatically. You can quickly be editing, building and debugging your code locally on Windows, and then switching your configuration to do the same on Linux all from within Visual Studio.
Teams working on these types of code bases may have developers who have different primary operating systems, e.g. some people are on Linux (and may be using the Visual Studio Code editor) and some are on Windows (probably using the Visual Studio IDE). In an environment like this, the choice of tools may be up to the developers themselves. You can use Visual Studio in an environment like this without perturbing your other team members or making changes to your source as is. If or when additional configuration is needed it is saved in flat json files that can be saved locally, or shared in source control with other developers using Visual Studio without impacting developers that are not using it.
Visual Studio isnât just for Windows C and C++ development anymore. If you follow the tutorial below on your own machine, you will clone an open source project from GitHub, open it in Visual Studio, edit, build and debug on Windows with no changes to the project. Then Visual Studio will add a connection to a Linux machine and edit, build and debug it on that remote machine.
Visual Studio 2017 contains a laundry list of new, incremental improvements to C++, C#, F#, debugging, and more. In some ways, its biggest improvement is not to the core product itself but its. MonoDevelop Can be used to open and manipulate Visual Studio project on a Mac. It can however only open.csproj files, not the legacy.vcproj.You can convert your old project to a compatible one, using Visual Studio Conversion Wizard. As you are working with C++, you are however free to use any IDE or editor you like.
The next section shows you how to setup Visual Studio, followed by a section on how to configure your Linux target, and last the tutorial itself â have fun!
If youâre using the Mac keyboard, youâll want to change the function key behavior so the F1-F12 keys work correctly in Visual Studio. From System Preferences â Keyboard, make sure Use all F1, F2, etc. Keys as standard function keys is checked. Compiling and building in Visual Studio for Mac.; 2 minutes to read Contributors. All; In this article. Visual Studio for Mac can be used to build applications and create assemblies during the development of your project.
Setting up Visual Studio for Cross Platform C++ Development
First you need to have Visual Studio installed. If you have it installed already confirm that you have the Desktop development with C++ and Linux development with C++ workloads installed. If you donât have Visual Studio installed use this link to install it with the minimal set of components for this tutorial selected. This minimal install is only a 3GB, depending on your download speed installation should not take more than 10 minutes.
Once that is done you are ready to go on Windows.
Configuring your Linux machine for cross platform C++ development
Visual Studio does not have a requirement for a specific distribution of Linux; use any you would like to. That can be on a physical machine, in a VM, the cloud, or even running on Windows Subsystem for Linux. The tools Visual Studio requires to be present on the Linux machine are: C++ compilers, GDB, ssh, and zip. https://twtree557.weebly.com/visual-basic-studio-for-mac.html. On Debian based systems you can install these dependencies as follows.
You can see the options for running it with âhelp. We recommend that you use the âprefix option to specify installing in the /usr/local path as that is the default location Visual Studio looks for CMake at.
Note that you can use any Linux distro for this tutorial, however using Windows Subsystem for Linux for this one is not a good idea since the executable we are going to run is graphical which is not supported officially there.
Step 1 â Clone and open the bullet3 repo
To start, clone the bullet3 repository from GitHub on the machine where you have Visual Studio installed. If you have git installed on your command line it will be as simple as running git clone wherever you would like to keep this repository.
The Add Configuration to CMakeSettings dialog will appear.
Here you see Visual Studio has preconfigured options for many of the platforms Visual Studio can be configured to use with CMake. If you want to continue to use the default x64-Debug configuration that should be the first one you add. You want that for this tutorial so can switch back and forth between Windows and Linux configurations. Select x64-Debug and click Select. This creates the CMakeSettings.json file with a configuration for âx64-Debugâ and switches Visual Studio to use that configuration instead of the default. This happens very quickly as the provided settings are the same as the default. You will see the configuration drop down no longer says â(default)â as part of the name.
You can use whatever names you like for your configurations by changing the name parameter in the CMakeSettings.json.
Now that you have a configuration specified in the configuration dropdown Manage Configurations option opens the CMakeSettings.json file so you can adjust values there. To add a Linux configuration right click the CMakeSettings.json file in the solution explorer view and select Add Configuration.
This provides the same Add Configuration to CMakeSettings dialog you saw before. This time select Linux-Debug, then save the CMakeSettings.json file. Now in the configuration drop down select Linux-Debug.
Since this is the first time you are connecting to a Linux system the Connect to Remote System dialog will appear.
Provide the connection information to your Linux machine and click Connect. This will add that machine as your default remote machine which is what the CMakeSetttings.json for Linux-Debug is configured to use. It will also pull down the headers from your remote machine so that you get IntelliSense specific to that machine when you use it. Now Visual Studio will send your files to the remote machine, then generate the CMake cache there, and when that is done Visual Studio will be configured for using the same source base with that remote Linux machine. These steps may take some time depending on the speed of your network and power of your remote machine. You will know this is complete when the message âTarget info extraction doneâ appears in the CMake output window.
Step 5 â Set breakpoint, build and run on Linux
Since this is a desktop application you need to provide some additional configuration information to the debug configuration. In the CMake Targets view right click AppBasicExampleGui and choose Debug and Launch settings.
This will open a file launch.vs.json that is in the hidden .vs subfolder. This file is local to your development environment. You can move it into the root of your project if you wish to check it in and save it with your team. In this file a configuration has been added for AppBasicExampleGui. These default settings work in most cases, as this is a desktop application you need to provide some additional information to launch the program in a way you can see it on our Linux machine. You need to know the value of the environment variable DISPLAY on your Linux machine, run this command to get it.
In my case this was :1. In the configuration for AppBasicExampleGui there is a parameter array âpipeArgsâ. Within there is a line â${debuggerCommand}â. This is the command that launches gdb on the remote machine. Visual Studio needs to export the display into this context before that command runs. Do so by modifying that line as follows using the value of your display.
Now in order to launch and debug our application, choose the âSelect Startup Itemâ dropdown in the toolbar and choose AppBasicExampleGui.
Now press that button or hit F5. This will build the application and its dependencies on the remote Linux machine then launch it with the Visual Studio debugger attached. On your remote Linux machine, you should see an application window appear with the same falling bunch of cubes arranged as a single block.
Move your mouse into the application window, click a button, and the breakpoint will be triggered. This pause execution of your program, bring Visual Studio back to the foreground, and you will be at your breakpoint. You should also see a Linux Console Window appear in Visual Studio. This window provides output from the remote Linux machine, and it can also accept input for stdin. It can of course be docked where you prefer to see it and itâs position will be used again in future sessions.
You will be able to inspect the application variables, objects, threads, memory, and step through your code interactively using Visual Studio. This time on a remote Linux machine instead of your local Windows environment. You can click continue to let the application resume and exit it normally or cease execution within Visual Studio using the stop button. All the same things youâd expect if this were running locally.
Visual Studio For Mac
Look at the Call Stack window and you will see this time the Calls to x11OpenGLWindow since Visual Studio has launched the application on Linux.
What you learned and where to learn more
So now you have seen the same code base, cloned directly from GitHub, build, run, and debugged on Windows with no modifications. Then with some minor configuration settings build, run and debugged on a remote Linux machine as well. If you are doing cross platform development, we hope you find a lot to love here. Visual Studio C and C++ development is not just for Windows anymore.
Further articles
Documentation links
This section will be updated in the future with links to new articles on Cross Platform Development with Visual Studio.
Give us feedbackVisual Studio Make A C++ Project For Mac
Use this link to download Visual Studio 2017 with everything you need to try the steps in this tutorial, then try it with your projects.
Your feedback is very important to us. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing the things you make.
As always, we welcome your feedback. We can be reached via the comments below or via email ([email protected]). If you encounter other problems with MSVC or have a suggestion for Visual Studio please let us know through Help > Send Feedback > Report A Problem / Provide a Suggestion in the product, or via Developer Community. You can also find us on Twitter (@VisualC).
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |