I'd like to compile Lua 5.2 alpha under visual studio but I'm getting errors and I have no clue how to fix them.
error LNK1169: one or more multiply defined symbols found
error LNK2005: _main already defined in lua.obj
I'd be grateful if anyone could guide me through the creation of a VS2010 solution for Lua 5.2 alpha, or point me to related resources.
Thanks in advance.
You are most probably compiling both luac.c and lua.c in one VS project. To build Lua yourself in VS you need three projects:
library - this should be either DLL or static library project. Should include every .c file under src/ except luac.c and lua.c. You only need this if you are embedding.
compiler - console executable, containing luac.c
interpreter - console executable, containing lua.c
Sounds like you included lua.c, or luac.c, with another program. Each of these is a separate program with their own main. You need to include just one of them to build the standalone Lua component, or neither if you're embedding Lua in your own application.
The Lua source distribution includes a console interpreter, which already defines main, and you don't want that. Just look in the Lua source and delete or comment out the mains that you find.
Related
Is it possible to compile libexif with Visual Studio 2010? I have been trying to do so and have been running into a whole slew of problems. I cannot find any information about whether anybody has successfully done this before. I know I can use MinGW to compile the library, but I am in a situation where I need it to be compiled with Visual Studio and then need to link to it from a Visual C++ app. Is this possible?
To answer your question: Yes it is possible... but it is a bit of a hack. Libexif uses functions that MSVC has chosen not to implement. See my working example VS2010 project below (if you don't like downloading files then skip to my explanation of what needed changing to get it to work below):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l6wowl8pouux01a/libexif-0.6.21_CompiledInVS2010%2BExample.7z?dl=0
To elaborate, the issues that needed a "hack" (as hinted in the LibExif readme-win32.txt documentation) are:
Libexif uses inline in several places which is not defined in VS for C, only C++ (see this)
Libexif uses snprintf extensively in the code which is not defined in VS (see here)
You need to create the config.h yourself without a ./configure command to help you. You could read through the script but most of it doesn't make sense for Windows VS2010.
You will need to define GETTEXT_PACKAGE because it's probably setup in the configure file. I just choose UTF-8, whether that is correct or not I'm not sure.
There was a random unsigned static * that needed to be moved from a .c file to the .h file as C in VS doesn't allow you to create new variables inside functions in the particular way they were trying to do.
Read the "readme-win32.txt" file. Advice is:
hack yourself a build system somehow. This seems to be the Windows way of doing things.
Don't get your hopes up. The *nix way of doing things is the configuration script that needs to be run first. It auto-generates source files to marry the library to the specific flavor of *nix. The configuration script is almost half a megabyte. Three times as much code as in the actual .c files :) You cannot reasonably get that working without MinGW so you can execute the script. Once you got that done, you've got a better shot at it with a VS solution. As long as it doesn't use too much C99 specific syntax.
How to build a .bundle from source code?
This might sound like a simple problem but it has been hurdling me for a week...
Here is my problem:
I have a bunch of .c and .h files that are organized in a folder and its sub folders. The source code was written and compiled with gcc make and tested by many other make tools. The source code has some utilities and command line tools and it has more code that serve as library for those utilities and tools. It is the files that serve as libraries that I want to reuse. (By library I don't mean static library or something, I just mean that some .c and .h files in certain subfolders provide functions that can be called by some other .c files. I want to be able to call those functions, too)
Yet my problem is more complex than that: I need to build those .c and .h into a bundle to reuse it. I am not writing my application in C; I am developing in Unity and Unity can only take in .bundle files on Mac OS.
Here is my goal:
Organize the source code folder in a proper way so that I can build them into a bundle in Xcode 4.
Here is where I got stuck:
When building the project I got the following error:
Duplicate symbol _main in
/Users/zeningqu/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/ccn-cfygrtkrshubpofnfxalwimtyniq/Build/Intermediates/ccn.build/Debug/ccn.build/Objects-normal/i386/ccndsmoketest.o
and
/Users/zeningqu/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/ccn-cfygrtkrshubpofnfxalwimtyniq/Build/Intermediates/ccn.build/Debug/ccn.build/Objects-normal/i386/ccnd_main.o
for architecture i386
I can relate to this error because I can find lots of main entries in the source code. Most of them are test utilities.
Here is what I tried:
I tried removing all those utility .c files but with no luck. The error is still there. I delete and delete until some files cannot find the definition of the function they are calling. So I had to stop there.
Though I wasn't able to build a bundle I was able to build a C/C++ static library (with an .a extension). After I got the .a file I tried to put it into another Xcode project and tried to build it into a bundle. I could build a bundle in that way, but then I had problem accessing the content of the bundle. How do I call functions defined in a .a static library if that library is hidden in a bundle? I read about Apple's documentation which says:
Note: Some Xcode targets (such as shell tools and static libraries) do
not result in the creation of a bundle or package. This is normal and
there is no need to create bundles specifically for these target
types. The resulting binaries generated for those targets are intended
to be used as is.
(quoted from: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/CoreFoundation/Conceptual/CFBundles/AboutBundles/AboutBundles.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/10000123i-CH100-SW1)
Here is what I thought about:
I thought about replacing all main with something like main_sth. But the source code was not written by me so I didn't want to modify it. (It just doesn't feel like a proper way of doing things to me...)
I learnt that Xcode has gcc compiler built in. So I guess if gcc can make it, so can Xcode? It's just a wild guess - I am not familiar with Xcode and gcc.
Here is a summary of my questions:
Is there a way to properly organize a pile of code previously compiled and made by gcc make so that they can be built into an Xcode bundle?
Is it meaningful to put a .a library in an Xcode project and build it into a bundle? If it is meaningful, how do I call functions defined in .a after it is built into a bundle?
Is it proper to just replace all main() entries with something else?
Alright I think I have figured out at least one solution to the problem.
The duplicate main error was caused by a bunch of main entries in my source code. When the code was compiled by gcc make, I guess the author defined a sort of compilation order so that duplicate mains won't be an issue. (If you know how to do this, please let me know. I barely know make tools.) But when I just add the entire source code folder into my Xcode project, of course Xcode would complain during linking...
As I was unwilling to modify the source code (because the source code library is not developed by me), I decided to use another strategy to walk around this problem.
If your duplicate main error was reported from your own code, you can stop reading here. But if you are like me, with a bunch of gcc compiled source code and badly need a bundle yet don't know what to do, I may be able to help.
Okay here is what I did:
I set up an empty workspace.
I built a C/C++ static library project.
Import my entire source code folder into the static library project.
Set some header search path for the static library project.
Build the static library project. (Now I have a .a library which I could link against)
I set up another project, with a bundle target.
At the bundle project -> Build Phases -> Link Binary with Libraries, add the .a library that I just built.
At the bundle project -> edit scheme -> Build, add the static library project to the scheme and move it up the list so that it is built prior to my bundle project.
Then add .h files of my library project to my bundle project as references.
After that, add a .c file in my bundle project that basically functions as a wrapper. I picked a function that I want to call in Unity, wrote a wrapper function in the new .c file, and was able to build the bundle.
After several trial and error, I was able to import the bundle into Unity and was able to call the test function from Unity.
I was really excited about this! Though it's not completed yet I think this gives me hope and I am confident I can use the source code now! And the best thing about this solution is that I don't have to modify the library code developed by others. Whenever they update their code, I just update my .a library and that's it!
Though I have listed 11 steps I still feel that there are lots of details that I missed. So here are my references:
I followed this tutorial to build my source code into a static library: http://www.ccnx.org/?post_type=incsub_wiki&p=1315
I followed this blog to link static library against my bundle code and twist build phases and search headers: http://blog.carbonfive.com/2011/04/04/using-open-source-static-libraries-in-xcode-4/
I followed this doc to import my bundle to Unity3D Pro as a plugin: http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/Plugins.html
I strongly recommend the second reference because that's what solved my problem!
Though the problem is almost solved there are still a few things that I haven't figured out:
I don't know if a wrapper function is at all necessary. I will try this out tomorrow and come back to update.
-- I am coming back to update: the wrapper function is NOT necessary. Just make sure you have all the headers in your bundle project and you will be able to use all the data structures and call functions defined in your headers.
I haven't used NSBundle class though I read a few docs about it. Previously I was thinking about using that class to access my .a library encapsulated in my bundle, but as I found the solution I wrote above, I didn't try the class out.
Lastly, if you have better solution, please don't hesitate to let me know!
I tried to follow the steps in the accepted answer, but had no luck. In the end, I realised step 10 needed to be modified slightly:
Create a dummy.c under (.bundle) project and the dummy.c can just be totally empty.
Remove the setting for the library you want to link inside Link Binary With Libraries
Instead use -Wl,-force_load,$(CONFIGURATION_BUILD_DIR)/libYourLib.a or -all_load to Other Linker Flags
PS: And also can use sub-project instead of workspace. and use Target Dependencies instead of Edit Scheme to achieve the same effect.
I am porting a program to MS Windows. This program uses dynamically loaded plugins. The plugins reference symbols in the main program. I cannot even get the DLLs past the linker without all symbols being resolved. Is there a way to solve this?
(Sorry, I'd like to ask for clarification in a comment but I'm too much of a newbie to be allowed.)
When you say the plugins "reference symbols in the main program", is it about referencing functions or data? Also, what language/compiler are you using?
Assuming it's only about functions, and in C/C++: it's possible to export a function from a .EXE as if it were a DLL. Just specify __declspec(dllexport) in front of the function definition in the .EXE . When compiling the .EXE, a .LIB file should get generated, which you can then use as input when linking each plugin.
I have multiple source files in C++ using which i want to create a Dynamic link library.
I see this happening in linux with gcc -shared and ln
however for Windows i suppose i would have to modify source files to generate a DLL.
Is there a way to generate DLL (a file similar to *.so in linux) with provided source files. Please correct me if i m wrong, i think *so is dll for linux.
The reason for needing this is to use SWIG for calling C++ functions in python in Windows Platfrom. I am stuck at the step that requires me to generate a dll in windows.
The exact approach depends on which compiler you are using, but the procedure is probably documented. For example, if you want to create a DLL using Visual Studio, a walkthrough is available here.
DLL functions that are callable from outside the DLL have special macro keywords
__declspec(dllexport) void __cdecl SomeFunction(int a, int b);
What compiler are you using? For Visual C++ the command line that creates a dynamic library from the given object files looks like this:
link -nologo -dll -out:mylib.dll -implib:mylib.lib myobj1.obj myobj2.obj ...
Also while compiling your source files into object files you will need to use the -D option to define any macros necessary to ensure that your dynamic library's symbols will be exported.
I'm using Visual Studio .NET 2003, and I'm trying to port code I've written and compiled/run successfully in Linux GCC to Windows.
I'm a newbie when using VS. I've created a new project, and added all the .c and .h files I have into the project by Project -> Add Existing Items, then chose all the .c and .h files.
I'm not familiar with how exactly compilers and linkers etc work, but is there a difference between how VS and gcc compile/link #include files? My habit of programming in Linux has been to have one main.c file, and #include all other .h or .c files that I need. Then I would only compile the main.c file. But in VS, it seems as if the #include files are not "seen" by the program, because I'm getting errors that tell me certain structures or variables were not declared, even though they are in my user-defined header files.
I'm also getting errors like DIR is an undeclared identifier. I've included , so why can't it recognize DIR?
Thank you.
Regards,
Rayne
Consider compiling your program with windows port of gcc (from Mingw32 or Cygwin) first. This will provide you with more familiar environment. If you'll still have to compile everything with VC++, you'll have more incremental process of porting.
Also, it is not evident from your post, but it seems you are trying to use dirent.h. Note that dirent.h (and corresponding libs) is not included with VC++.
One of the best ways to learn would be to start with the smallest application that you can compile on both. Expand this working and portable application step by step into the more fully featured application you desire.
Remember to add all .c/.cpp files to the 'Source Files' directory in the project as they won't be compiled otherwise.
Restrict any non-portable code (that you will need) to a single place. For example if you need to create threads, have a common create thread function used throughout (but implemented differently). Using portable libraries such as Boost can help here.