Questions When Starting to Create XOPs
jjweimer
1) Are XCode and the XOP Toolkit the only tools needed on a Mac PPC 10.4.11?
2) Can I create on a Mac PPC system and generate XOP variants that works across all platforms (Mac PPC, Mac Intel, and Windows)?
3) If the answer to the above is NO, then what must I do to translate a PPC created XOP to a variant for the other two platforms?
Suggestions to make the start-up easier would also be appreciated.
TIA!
Someone with more XOP-fu than I have might be able to answer these better, but I'll try.
1. I think so, though I've never written XOPs for the Mac.
2. You could code the XOP on a PPC system in such a way that the code itself would work on other platforms (in most cases, at least), however I think you would have to compile the XOP into a binary in different platforms.
3. If you don't have the source code for the XOP, I don't believe there's much you can do. However, if you have the source code, depending on how the XOP was coded you should be able to compile it on another platform with minimal difficulties.
The XOP toolkit handbook gives suggestions on how to make your code cross platform. For some types of behavior, such as things that use specific OS API calls, you won't be able to have a completely cross platform XOP.
HTH
Adam
August 21, 2008 at 11:33 am - Permalink
You need to use Visual C++ on Windows.
For simple XOPs there are few if any code changes needed on Windows versus Macintosh.
See Chapter 1 of the XOP Toolkit manual for background information.
August 21, 2008 at 12:30 pm - Permalink
1) Yes, buy the toolkit and XCode comes on the CD's with Tiger.
2) I'm not sure if you can cross compile from a PPC computer to INTEL, although the reverse is possible (EDIT: I think you can compile Universal on PPC). I have a Intel chip on my Macbook and make Universal binaries. (You have to specify which architecture you want to write for. AFAIK you can't compile for Windows through XCode. However, a way around this is to install a Windows virtual machine through Parallels. This is the way I went. This allows you to develop in XCode, compile for Mac, switch over to Windows(running in Parallels), compile the code in VC2008 (free download from Microsoft), using exactly the same codebase. Remember, the Windows VM can see exactly the same files as you use on OSX, good for file management.
However, the same caveat applies, I don't think you can install a Windows virtual machine on a PPC machine (I may be wrong). For that matter I don't think you will be able to compile in VC2008 on a PPC.
I then set up a shell script to compile the code automatically, package it into an installer package using PackageManager (comes with XCode), then automatically use SVN to upload it to igorexchange. I use VENIS and the NSIS Nullsoft software to create Windows installer packages.
3) Get an Intel Mac, install Windows on a Virtual machine (e.g. through Parallels). The above methods are the easiest ways I've found to make sure the code works on both OS's
August 24, 2008 at 02:18 pm - Permalink
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
August 25, 2008 at 07:12 am - Permalink