Upon finishing a COBOL program, how do I compile it into an executable file that may be run on other PCs? I'm using OpenCOBOL via cygwin.
Check out this getting started page from the user manual for OpenCOBOL:
But in case the link is broken, just do this:
$ cobc -x hello.cob
$ ./hello
cobc is the compiler. hello.cob is the source file. The output is simply the file hello which can be run by calling ./hello. The -x option is necessary to build an executable.
However, with all compiled programs, it is compiled for the machine is was built on. It will work on machine with similar architectures, but you don't true cross-platform ability unless you're using an interpreted language like Python or Java.
If you compile with Cygwin, the target computers also need Cygwin, or in particular the cygwin dynamic libraries along with the OpenCOBOL runtimes.
Many times, you can also compile under MinGW, which lessens the dependencies, but also lessens the available POSIX features.
Easiest path, install OpenCOBOL and Cygwin on the target machines, and you'll be good to go, otherwise you'll need to produce release packages with all the dependencies and instructions for PATH settings.
Related
Disclaimer: Please read question carefully, This question has a twist so read it till end.
So JSON-C is one of the highly popular library to work on JSON using C programming. Basic illustration on current work, whatever code building here is for multi-platform. Currently Linux & Windows are supported platform and I have small issue with Windows related JSON-C part.
I'm using Cygwin for Windows development, and when I compile JSON-C code as per provided instruction on it's GitHub page, using CMAKE it works out quite good and build system is able generate DLLs for Windows. But if you have worked with Cygwin then you must know that whatever is built using Cygwin, will have dependency on it's run-time environment (cygwin1.dll) (Why does GCC-Windows depend on cygwin?) and it won't be an independent DLL that can be moved around to different system with same architecture. So with this dependency on Cygwin if my project is built on Windows platform, I have to carry around either Cygwin Run-Time Env. or I have to make sure Cygwin installed on target system for smooth execution. This sort of dependency I do not wish to have for my project, it can ruin user experience.
So what I want as help here, Is there a way to build JSON-C independent of Cygwin (run-time environment)??
NOTE: I already know that, if using Cygwin one wishes to create such an independent DLL for Windows then that can be done using few parameters to compiler and some additional macros placed in-front of function declaration as described here Creating a DLL in GCC or Cygwin?
But I don't see such support in source code JSON-C for Windows. So I was just wondering if JSON-C Dev team has kept some provision via build-system then I'm keen to know that part.
PS: I have not dipped into JSON-C build system yet due to my other development, so if anyone out there (my beloved community) has anything on this then please share, that would be terrific.
EDIT
Forgot to mention the version I'm using :p
json-c-0.13.1-20180305
I am able to build JSON-C 0.14-20200419 (from https://github.com/json-c/json-c) under MSYS2 with MinGW-w64 - both static and shared - using these instructions (replace /usr/local as needed):
INSTALLPREFIX=/usr/local
mkdir -p build_static build_shared &&
cmake.exe -Wno-dev -GNinja -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=$INSTALLPREFIX -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Release -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS:BOOL=OFF -DBUILD_TESTING:BOOL=OFF -S. -Bbuild_static &&
cmake.exe -Wno-dev -GNinja -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=$INSTALLPREFIX -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Release -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS:BOOL=ON -DBUILD_TESTING:BOOL=OFF -S. -Bbuild_shared &&
ninja -Cbuild_static install/strip &&
ninja -Cbuild_shared install/strip &&
echo Success
If you don't have ninja you can probably also use -G"MSYS Makefiles" and use make instead of ninja.
Note that MinGW-w64 is different from Cygwin in that it compiles to native Windows binaries without dependancies on a compatibility layer (like Cygwin's cygwin1.dll). The following screenshots illustrates this:
I have to C program which is compiled using gcc in ubuntu. I want to run that executable in android terminal. When i run it is showing either "file or directory is not found" or "not executable:ELF32".
I want to run the code in android terminal. Is there any way or flags in gcc or using any other compiler so that i can run my code in the android terminal.?
Android does not use the same system libraries as Ubuntu, so they will not be found.
There are two solutions:
Copy the libraries you need.
If you can place them in the same filesystem locations they have in Ubuntu then great, otherwise you'll need to run the ld-linux.so manually and tell it where to find the libraries. Or, you could relink the program such that it expects to find the dynamic linker and libraries in a non-standard place. You might also use a chroot, but that requires root, and you'd need to find a chroot binary that works.
Use a static link.
This usually just means passing -static to GCC. You get a much larger binary that should be entirely self-contained, with no dependencies. It requires that static versions of all your libraries are available on your build system. Also, some features (such as DNS lookup) always expect a shared library, so they won't work this way.
Even then, you should expect some Linux features to not work. Basically, anything that requires hardware features or configuration files in /etc are going to need a lot of effort. There are various projects that have done this already (search "linux chroot android").
I'm not sure what the "not executable:ELF32" message means, but you should check whether you're building 32 or 64-bit executables, and which the Android binaries are using (file <whatever> should tell you).
I need to install Primer3 for my research in Windows, and I really have no idea of how to go about it. I was following the instructions mentioned here.
I'm getting to the part where I need to run
mingw32-make TESTOPTS=--windows
and I keep getting an error saying:
'mingw32-make' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
Just for reference, I went into the minGW Installation manager and got the ming32-make packages, including the bin, doc, lang, and lic ones, because I really had no idea which one was the correct one.
If someone could help me, I would be very grateful! Installing these niche programs without an installation wizard is a challenge!
You will need to install mingw32-make. This is a
Windows of port of GNU Make,
a software-build tool that is supported on all operating systems,
indeed the daddy of such tools.
But make alone will not suffice. To build primer3 you will
need a Windows port of the whole GNU toolchain for building software
from source code. Without that, running make by itself will
just expose the absence of the GCC compiler and linker that it
expects to do its bidding.
This is quite a lot of software, but it is easy and quick to install and there
are several open-source offerings. I suggest you go to TDM GCC
and download the TDM64 bundle. This will give you an executable installer.
Just run it and you will end up with the complete GNU toolchain, including,
mingw32-make, in your chosen installation directory.
It will also install in your Windows launch menu the MinGW command prompt.
Launch this and you will be presented with a Windows commandline console
with its environment set up to find and run any of the GNU tools.
In this console change directory to your primer3-X.Y.Z/test directory
and then run mingw32-make TESTOPTS=--windows as per documentation.
Be forwarned that the self-tests of primer3 that are executed to
verify the build may take 1/2 hr. to 1 hr. to run, depending on your
hardware, but they will finish successfully with the steps I've
described, barring problems specific to your machine. It is a foolproof-simple build.
All the built executables are deposited in the primer3-X.Y.Z/src
directory. You may want to move them somewhere more convenient
in in your PATH.
It does seem oddly amateurish that the documentation simply
directs you to run mingw32-make with no preliminary account of
what that is or how to install it, while on the other hand it
advises that you must install perl and strongly recommends a
specific perl distribution; but evidently primer3 is open-source
scientfic software and its documentation is not bad by the standard
of that genre.
I have a C project with a Makefile, I want to build it on windows. I downloaded GNU Make installed. And I have VS2010. The make file has UNIX commands like cc, nvcc and g++. I have to replace them with MS C, CUDA and C++ compilers right? What are the command line commands I have to replace them with? Is there anything I need to install?
I want to do it without Cygwin (it's installation is taking forever), otherwise Cygwin is the fallback method.
You don't actually have to replace any of those commands with the Windows-variant. A working compiler will still compile source code just fine even if it isn't the defacto compiler for an operating system.
I hear ya on the Cygwin bit--you can just install a Minimal GNU environment using MinGW and that'll give you everything that you need to be able to the utilize the Unix makefile.
I am using Cygwin and have GCC (version 4.3.4 20090804 (release) 1 ) installed as Cygwin package.
When I built C code using GCC under Cygwin shell, the generated executable output file is a executable of type (PE32 executable for MS Windows (console) Intel 80386 32-bit) and it can only be executed/run under Cygwin shell, not as standalone .exe on Windows shell/command prompt. If I try to run it standalone on Windows command prompt it gives an error window saying "The program can't run because cygwin.dll is missing from your computer".
How can one make this .exe standalone, which can be executed on a command prompt of any other system or even in my own system?
I thought GCC under Cygwin would build a Linux executable (ELF 32-bit LSB executable), but it's not so. How can I use the gcc-cygwin combination to generate a *.out kind of Linux executable file?
Also, I cannot run a Linux executable generated on a Linux-gcc combination to execute under Cygwin.
Any pointers would be helpful.
Despite widespread rumours, Cygwin is not a Linux emulator, i.e. it doesn't produce or run Linux executables. For that you'll need a virtual machine or coLinux.
Instead, Cygwin is a compatibility layer, which aims to implement as much as possible of the POSIX and Linux APIs within Windows. This means that programs have to be compiled specifically for Cygwin, but it also means that it's better integrated with Windows, e.g. it lets you mix POSIX and Windows APIs in the same program.
It's the cygwin1.dll that provides that compatibility layer. If you build non-Cygwin executables using gcc-3's -mno-cygwin switch or one of the MinGW compilers, then of course you can't use any POSIX/Linux-specific APIs, and any such calls will need to be replaced with Windows equivalents.
Cygwin is an emulation layer. It allows UNIX code to run on Windows, if you compile it to use the emulation layer. To Windows it looks like any normal DLL and makes OS calls as normal. But when you compile against it, it shows the same functions as UNIX (well, POSIX technically, but UNIX it is)
1) When you build with cygwin, it automatically brings in this cygwin1.dll. This is the code that you need to make it look like UNIX. There are flags to make it not use this cygwin dll, meaning ignore the UNIX stuff and use native Windows calls. the -mno-cygwin flag will make the binary a native Windows binary, not using cygwin emulation. As others have said, you also need the -mwindows to make actual GUI apps using cygwin gcc.
2) To compile on one platform to run on another platform, you need what's called a cross compiler. You also need the libraries and headers for the other system. For what you want you'd need a cygwin-Linux cross compiler, Linux headers and libraries. It would probably be much easier to run Linux in a virtual machine than to set this up.
3) Remember that Cygwin just looks like UNIX to UNIX source code, not to Linux binaries. Once you compile things, the function calls are windows DLL calls. A cygwin program is still a Windows program (which is why you need a Windows style DLL to run it). Cygwin provides code for UNIX functions/system calls such as fork(), but even the method of calling them is now different. fork() now calls into a Windows DLL, not into a Linux kernel. It's still a very different system.
Not a complete answer, but I think I am able to give some pointers.
1) http://www.cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/programming.html says you should use -mswindows parameter. Take a look of MinGW.
2) You need a cross gcc to do this. By default cygwin gcc produces binaries linked against cygwin.dll.
3) That it because it is a linux binary. Easiest way is to recompile software in cygwin.
ad 1) There are currently three different mingw cross-compilers available for cygwin:
The old gcc3 -mno-cygwin is deprecated.
There are new mingw64 cross-compilers for 32 bit (mingw64-i686-gcc) and 64 bit windows targets (mingw64-x86_64-gcc).
There's no mingw-i686-gcc matching the official cygwin gcc4 compiler yet.
ad 2) There's no linux cross-compiler as cygwin package yet available. But people report success building such a cross-compiler by themselves.
ad 3) There's no cygwin cross-compiler as linux package available, but many mingw cross-compilers. Those mingw executables can also be executed under cygwin, though they cannot use cygwin features, just the simple windows runtime.
Correcting errors in others people posts:
-mswindows is not valid, -mwindows tells the linker to generate a GUI app without console.
-mno-cygwin is only valid for the old deprecated gcc3 compiler and is not supported anymore. Don't use it. With cygwin you should use ordinary host and target triples as with every other cross-compiler.
You need to have cygwin.dll in your path.
Or just use MinGW to compile native windows code without dependencies.