A cross compiler is a
compiler
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...
capable of creating
executable code for a
platform
Platform may refer to:
Technology
* Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run
* Platform game, a genre of video games
* Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models
* Weapons platform, a system or ...
other than the one on which the compiler is running. For example, a compiler that runs on a
PC but generates code that runs on an
Android smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
is a cross compiler.
A cross compiler is useful to compile code for multiple platforms from one development host. Direct compilation on the target platform might be infeasible, for example on
embedded systems
An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' ...
with limited computing resources.
Cross compilers are distinct from
source-to-source compiler
A source-to-source translator, source-to-source compiler (S2S compiler), transcompiler, or transpiler is a type of translator that takes the source code of a program written in a programming language as its input and produces an equivalent sou ...
s. A cross compiler is for
cross-platform software
In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software ...
generation of machine code, while a source-to-source compiler translates from one coding language to another in text code. Both are
programming tool
A programming tool or software development tool is a computer program that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications. The term usually refers to relatively simple programs, that can b ...
s.
Use
The fundamental use of a cross compiler is to separate the build environment from target environment. This is useful in several situations:
*
Embedded computers where a device has highly limited resources. For example, a microwave oven will have an extremely small computer to read its keypad and door sensor, provide output to a digital display and speaker, and to control the microwave for cooking food. This computer is generally not powerful enough to run a compiler, a file system, or a development environment.
* Compiling for multiple machines. For example, a company may wish to support several different versions of an operating system or to support several different operating systems. By using a cross compiler, a single build environment can be set up to compile for each of these targets.
* Compiling on a
server farm
A server farm or server cluster is a collection of computer servers, usually maintained by an organization to supply server functionality far beyond the capability of a single machine. They often consist of thousands of computers which require ...
. Similar to compiling for multiple machines, a complicated build that involves many compile operations can be executed across any machine that is free, regardless of its underlying hardware or the operating system version that it is running.
*
Bootstrapping
In general, bootstrapping usually refers to a self-starting process that is supposed to continue or grow without external input.
Etymology
Tall boots may have a tab, loop or handle at the top known as a bootstrap, allowing one to use fingers ...
to a new platform. When developing software for a new platform, or the emulator of a future platform, one uses a cross compiler to compile necessary tools such as the operating system and a native compiler.
* Compiling native code for
emulators
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use peri ...
for older now-obsolete platforms like the Commodore 64 or Apple II by enthusiasts who use cross compilers that run on a current platform (such as Aztec C's MS-DOS
6502
The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...
cross compilers running under
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
).
Use of
virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized h ...
s (such as Java's
JVM
A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes ...
) resolves some of the reasons for which cross compilers were developed. The virtual machine paradigm allows the same compiler output to be used across multiple target systems, although this is not always ideal because virtual machines are often slower and the compiled program can only be run on computers with that virtual machine.
Typically the
hardware architecture
In engineering, hardware architecture refers to the identification of a system's physical components and their interrelationships. This description, often called a hardware design model, allows hardware designers to understand how their compon ...
differs (e.g. coding a program destined for the
MIPS architecture
MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures (ISA)Price, Charles (September 1995). ''MIPS IV Instruction Set'' (Revision 3.2), MIPS Technologies, ...
on an
x86
x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...
computer) but cross-compilation is also usable when only the
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
environment differs, as when compiling a
FreeBSD program under
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
, or even just the system library, as when compiling programs with
uClibc
__NOTOC__
In computing, uClibc (sometimes written µClibc) is a small C standard library intended for Linux kernel-based operating systems for embedded systems and mobile devices. uClibc was written to support μClinux, a version of Linux no ...
on a
glibc
The GNU C Library, commonly known as glibc, is the GNU Project's implementation of the C standard library. Despite its name, it now also directly supports C++ (and, indirectly, other programming languages). It was started in the 1980s by ...
host.
Canadian Cross
The Canadian Cross is a technique for building cross compilers for other machines, where the original machine is much slower or less convenient than the target. Given three machines A, B, and C, one uses machine A (e.g. running
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
on an
IA-32
IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnation o ...
processor) to build a cross compiler that runs on machine B (e.g. running
Mac OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
on an
x86-64
x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging ...
processor) to create executables for machine C (e.g. running
Android on an
ARM
In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...
processor). The practical advantage in this example is that Machine A is slow but has a proprietary compiler, while Machine B is fast but has no compiler at all, and Machine C is impractically slow to be used for compilation.
When using the Canadian Cross with GCC, and as in this example, there may be four compilers involved
* The ''proprietary native Compiler for machine A (1)'' (e.g. compiler from
Microsoft Visual Studio) is used to build the ''gcc native compiler for machine A (2)''.
* The ''gcc native compiler for machine A (2)'' is used to build the ''gcc cross compiler from machine A to machine B (3)''
* The ''gcc cross compiler from machine A to machine B (3)'' is used to build the ''gcc cross compiler from machine B to machine C (4)''
![Example of Canadian Cross, scheme](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Example_of_Canadian_Cross%2C_scheme.svg)
The end-result cross compiler (4) will not be able to run on build machine A; instead it would run on machine B to compile an application into executable code that would then be copied to machine C and executed on machine C.
For instance,
NetBSD provides a
POSIX
The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming inter ...
Unix shell
A Unix shell is a command-line interpreter or shell that provides a command line user interface for Unix-like operating systems. The shell is both an interactive command language and a scripting language, and is used by the operating syste ...
script named
build.sh
which will first build its own
toolchain
In software, a toolchain is a set of programming tools that is used to perform a complex software development task or to create a software product, which is typically another computer program or a set of related programs. In general, the tools for ...
with the host's compiler; this, in turn, will be used to build the cross compiler which will be used to build the whole system.
The term Canadian Cross came about because at the time that these issues were under discussion, Canada had three national political parties.
Timeline of early cross compilers
* 1979 –
ALGOL 68C
ALGOL 68C is an imperative computer programming language, a dialect of ALGOL 68, that was developed by Stephen R. Bourne and Michael Guy to program the Cambridge Algebra System (CAMAL). The initial compiler was written in the Princeton Syntax ...
generated
ZCODE
ALGOL 68C is an imperative computer programming language, a dialect of ALGOL 68, that was developed by Stephen R. Bourne and Michael Guy to program the Cambridge Algebra System (CAMAL). The initial compiler was written in the Princeton Syntax ...
; this aided porting the compiler and other ALGOL 68 applications to alternate platforms. To compile the ALGOL 68C compiler required about 120 KB of memory. With
Z80
The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...
its 64 KB memory is too small to actually compile the compiler. So for the Z80 the compiler itself had to be cross compiled from the larger
CAP capability computer or an
IBM System/370
The IBM System/370 (S/370) is a model range of IBM mainframe computers announced on June 30, 1970, as the successors to the System/360 family. The series mostly maintains backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path ...
mainframe.
GCC and cross compilation
GCC, a
free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
collection of compilers, can be set up to cross compile. It supports many platforms and languages.
GCC requires that a compiled copy of
binutils
The GNU Binary Utilities, or , are a set of programming tools for creating and managing binary programs, object files, libraries, profile data, and assembly source code.
Tools
They were originally written by programmers at Cygnus Solutions.
...
is available for each targeted platform. Especially important is the
GNU Assembler. Therefore, binutils first has to be compiled correctly with the switch
--target=some-target
sent to the
configure script
A configure script is an executable script designed to aid in developing a program to be run on a wide number of different computers. It matches the libraries on the user's computer, with those required by the program before compiling it from its ...
. GCC also has to be
configured with the same
--target
option. GCC can then be run normally provided that the tools, which
binutils
The GNU Binary Utilities, or , are a set of programming tools for creating and managing binary programs, object files, libraries, profile data, and assembly source code.
Tools
They were originally written by programmers at Cygnus Solutions.
...
creates, are available in the
path
A path is a route for physical travel – see Trail.
Path or PATH may also refer to:
Physical paths of different types
* Bicycle path
* Bridle path, used by people on horseback
* Course (navigation), the intended path of a vehicle
* Desire p ...
, which can be done using the following (on UNIX-like operating systems with bash):
PATH=/path/to/binutils/bin:$ make
Cross-compiling GCC requires that a portion of the ''target platforms
C standard library be available on the ''host platform''. The programmer may choose to compile the full C library, but this choice could be unreliable. The alternative is to use
newlib
Newlib is a C standard library implementation intended for use on embedded systems. It is a conglomeration of several library parts, all under free software licenses that make them easily usable on embedded products.
It was created by Cygnus S ...
, which is a small
C library
The C standard library or libc is the standard library for the C programming language, as specified in the ISO C standard. ISO/IEC (2018). '' ISO/IEC 9899:2018(E): Programming Languages - C §7'' Starting from the original ANSI C standard, it was ...
containing only the most essential components required to compile
C source code.
The
GNU autotools
The GNU Autotools, also known as the GNU Build System, is a suite of programming tools designed to assist in making source code packages portable to many Unix-like systems.
It can be difficult to make a software program portable: the C compiler ...
packages (i.e.
autoconf
GNU Autoconf is a tool for producing configure scripts for building, installing, and packaging software on computer systems where a Bourne shell is available.
Autoconf is agnostic about the programming languages used, but it is often used for ...
,
automake
In software development, GNU Automake is a programming tool to automate parts of the compilation process. It eases usual compilation problems. For example, it points to needed dependencies.
It automatically generates one or more ''Makefile.in ...
, and
libtool
In computer programming, GNU Libtool is a software development tool, part of the GNU build system, consisting of a shell script created to address the software portability problem when compiling shared libraries from source code.
It hides t ...
) use the notion of a ''build platform'', a ''host platform'', and a ''target platform''. The ''build platform'' is where the compiler is actually compiled. In most cases, build should be left undefined (it will default from host). The ''host platform'' is always where the output artifacts from the compiler will be executed whether the output is another compiler or not. The ''target platform'' is used when cross-compiling cross compilers, it represents what type of object code the package will produce; otherwise the ''target platform'' setting is irrelevant. For example, consider cross-compiling a video game that will run on a
Dreamcast
The is a home video game console released by Sega on November 27, 1998, in Japan; September 9, 1999, in North America; and October 14, 1999, in Europe. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, Nint ...
. The machine where the game is compiled is the ''build platform'' while the Dreamcast is the ''host platform''. The names ''host'' and ''target'' are relative to the compiler being used and shifted like ''son'' and ''grandson''.
Another method popularly used by embedded Linux developers involves the combination of GCC compilers with specialized sandboxes like
Scratchbox,
scratchbox2, o
PRoot These tools create a "
chroot
A chroot on Unix and Unix-like operating systems is an operation that changes the apparent root directory for the current running process and its children. A program that is run in such a modified environment cannot name (and therefore normall ...
ed" sandbox where the programmer can build up necessary tools, libc, and libraries without having to set extra paths. Facilities are also provided to "deceive" the runtime so that it "believes" it is actually running on the intended target CPU (such as an ARM architecture); this allows configuration scripts and the like to run without error. Scratchbox runs more slowly by comparison to "non-chrooted" methods, and most tools that are on the host must be moved into Scratchbox to function.
Manx Aztec C cross compilers
Manx Software Systems, of
Shrewsbury,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, produced
C compilers beginning in the 1980s targeted at professional developers for a variety of platforms up to and including
PCs and
Macs.
Manx's
Aztec C
Aztec C is a now discontinued C compiler for MS-DOS, Apple II DOS 3.3 and ProDOS, Commodore 64, early Macintosh, CP/M-80, Amiga, and Atari ST.
History
Manx Software Systems of Shrewsbury, New Jersey, produced C compilers beginning in th ...
programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming ...
was available for a variety of platforms including
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
,
Apple II,
DOS 3.3 and
ProDOS
ProDOS is the name of two similar operating systems for the Apple II series of personal computers. The original ProDOS, renamed ProDOS 8 in version 1.2, is the last official operating system usable by all 8-bit Apple II series computers, and w ...
,
Commodore 64,
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
68XXX and
Amiga.
From the 1980s and continuing throughout the 1990s until Manx Software Systems disappeared, the MS-DOS version of Aztec C was offered both as a native mode compiler or as a cross compiler for other platforms with different processors including the Commodore 64 and Apple II. Internet distributions still exist for Aztec C including their MS-DOS based cross compilers. They are still in use today.
Manx's Aztec C86, their native mode
8086
The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allowi ...
MS-DOS compiler, was also a cross compiler. Although it did not compile code for a different processor like their Aztec C65
6502
The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...
cross compilers for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, it created binary executables for then-legacy operating systems for the 16-bit 8086 family of processors.
When the IBM PC was first introduced it was available with a choice of operating systems,
CP/M-86 and
PC DOS being two of them. Aztec C86 was provided with link libraries for generating code for both
IBM PC operating systems. Throughout the 1980s later versions of Aztec C86 (3.xx, 4.xx and 5.xx) added support for
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
"transitory" versions 1 and 2 and which were less robust than the "baseline" MS-DOS version 3 and later which Aztec C86 targeted until its demise.
Finally, Aztec C86 provided C language developers with the ability to produce
ROM-able "HEX" code which could then be transferred using a
ROM burner directly to an 8086 based processor.
Paravirtualization
In computing, paravirtualization or para-virtualization is a virtualization technique that presents a software interface to the virtual machines which is similar, yet not identical, to the underlying hardware–software interface.
The intent o ...
may be more common today but the practice of creating low-level ROM code was more common per-capita during those years when
device driver development was often done by application programmers for individual applications, and new devices amounted to a
cottage industry. It was not uncommon for application programmers to interface directly with hardware without support from the manufacturer. This practice was similar to
Embedded Systems Development today.
Thomas Fenwick and James Goodnow II were the two principal developers of Aztec-C. Fenwick later became notable as the author of the
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
Windows CE
Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products.
Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...
kernel
Kernel may refer to:
Computing
* Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems
* Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution
* Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming
* Kernel method, in machine learn ...
or NK ("New Kernel") as it was then called.
Microsoft C cross compilers
Early history – 1980s
Microsoft C
Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) is a compiler for the C (programming language), C, C++ and C++/CX programming languages by Microsoft. MSVC is proprietary software; it was originally a standalone product but later became a part of Microsoft Visual Stu ...
(MSC) has a shorter history than others dating back to the 1980s. The first Microsoft C Compilers were made by the same company who made
Lattice C
The Lattice C Compiler was released in June 1982 by Lifeboat Associates and was the first C compiler for the IBM Personal Computer. The compiler sold for $500 and would run on PC DOS or MS-DOS (which at the time were the same product with differe ...
and were rebranded by Microsoft as their own, until MSC 4 was released, which was the first version that Microsoft produced themselves.
In 1987, many developers started switching to Microsoft C, and many more would follow throughout the development of Microsoft Windows to its present state. Products like
Clipper and later
Clarion emerged that offered easy database application development by using cross language techniques, allowing part of their programs to be compiled with Microsoft C.
Borland C (California company) was available for purchase years before Microsoft released its first C product.
Long before Borland, BSD Unix (Berkeley University) had gotten C from the authors of the C language:
Kernighan and
Ritchie who wrote it in unison while working for
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...
(labs). K&R's original needs was not only elegant 2nd level parsed syntax to replace asm 1st level parsed syntax: it was designed so that a minimal amount of asm be written to support each platform (the original design of C was ability to cross compile using C with the least support code per platform, which they needed.). Also yesterdays C directly related to ASM code wherever not platform dependent. Today's C (more-so c++) is no longer C compatible and the asm code underlying can be extremely different than written on a given platform (in Linux: it sometimes replaces and detours library calls with distributor choices). Today's C is a 3rd or 4th level language which is used the old way like a 2nd level language.
1987
C programs had long been linked with modules written in
assembly language. Most C compilers (even current compilers) offer an assembly language pass (that can be tweaked for efficiency then linked to the rest of the program after assembling).
Compilers like Aztec-C converted everything to assembly language as a distinct pass and then assembled the code in a distinct pass, and were noted for their very efficient and small code, but by 1987 the optimizer built into Microsoft C was very good, and only "mission critical" parts of a program were usually considered for rewriting. In fact, C language programming had taken over as the "lowest-level" language, with programming becoming a multi-disciplinary growth industry and projects becoming larger, with programmers writing user interfaces and database interfaces in higher-level languages, and a need had emerged for cross language development that continues to this day.
By 1987, with the release of MSC 5.1, Microsoft offered a cross language development environment for MS-DOS. 16-bit binary object code written in assembly language (
MASM
The Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) is an x86 assembler that uses the Intel syntax for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Beginning with MASM 8.0, there are two versions of the assembler: One for 16-bit & 32-bit assembly sources, and another (ML64) ...
) and Microsoft's other languages including
QuickBASIC
Microsoft QuickBASIC (also QB) is an Integrated Development Environment (or IDE) and compiler for the BASIC programming language that was developed by Microsoft. QuickBASIC runs mainly on DOS, though there was also a short-lived version for the c ...
,
Pascal, and
Fortran could be linked together into one program, in a process they called "Mixed Language Programming" and now "InterLanguage Calling". If
BASIC was used in this mix, the main program needed to be in BASIC to support the internal
runtime system
In computer programming, a runtime system or runtime environment is a sub-system that exists both in the computer where a program is created, as well as in the computers where the program is intended to be run. The name comes from the compile t ...
that compiled BASIC required for garbage collection and its other managed operations that simulated a BASIC
interpreter like
QBasic
QBasic is an integrated development environment (IDE) and interpreter for a variety of dialects of BASIC which are based on QuickBASIC. Code entered into the IDE is compiled to an intermediate representation (IR), and this IR is immediately e ...
in MS-DOS.
The
calling convention
In computer science, a calling convention is an implementation-level (low-level) scheme for how subroutines or functions receive parameters from their caller and how they return a result. When some code calls a function, design choices have bee ...
for C code, in particular, was to pass parameters in "reverse order" on the
stack and return values on the stack rather than in a
processor register. There were other programming rules to make all the languages work together, but this particular rule persisted through the cross language development that continued throughout
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
16- and 32-bit versions and in the development of programs for
OS/2
OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...
, and which persists to this day. It is known as the
Pascal calling convention
This article describes the calling conventions used when programming x86 architecture microprocessors.
Calling conventions describe the interface of called code:
*The order in which atomic (scalar) parameters, or individual parts of a complex pa ...
.
Another type of cross compilation that Microsoft C was used for during this time was in retail applications that require
handheld device
A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...
s like the
Symbol Technologies
Symbol Technologies is an American manufacturer and supplier of mobile data capture and delivery equipment. The company specializes in barcode scanners, mobile computers, RFID systems and Wireless LAN infrastructure. In 2014, Symbol Technolog ...
PDT3100 (used to take
inventory), which provided a link library targeted at an
8088
The Intel 8088 ("''eighty-eighty-eight''", also called iAPX 88) microprocessor is a variant of the Intel 8086. Introduced on June 1, 1979, the 8088 has an eight-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers a ...
based
barcode reader
A barcode reader is an optical scanner that can read printed barcodes, decode the data contained in the barcode to a computer. Like a flatbed scanner, it consists of a light source, a lens and a light sensor for translating optical impulses into ...
. The application was built on the host computer then transferred to the handheld device (via a
serial cable
A serial cable is a cable used to transfer information between two devices using a serial communication protocol. The form of connectors depends on the particular serial port used. A cable wired for connecting two DTEs directly is known as a nu ...
) where it was run, similar to what is done today for that same market using
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants.
Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...
by companies like
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...
, who bought Symbol.
Early 1990s
Throughout the 1990s and beginning with MSC 6 (their first
ANSI C
ANSI C, ISO C, and Standard C are successive standards for the C programming language published by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 14 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and th ...
compliant compiler) Microsoft re-focused their C compilers on the emerging Windows market, and also on
OS/2
OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...
and in the development of
GUI
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
programs. Mixed language compatibility remained through MSC 6 on the MS-DOS side, but the
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
for Microsoft Windows 3.0 and 3.1 was written in MSC 6. MSC 6 was also extended to provide support for 32-bit assemblies and support for the emerging
Windows for Workgroups and
Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system.
The first version of Win ...
which would form the foundation for
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
. A programming practice called a
thunk
In computer programming, a thunk is a subroutine used to inject a calculation into another subroutine. Thunks are primarily used to delay a calculation until its result is needed, or to insert operations at the beginning or end of the other subr ...
was introduced to allow passing between 16- and 32-bit programs that took advantage of runtime binding (
dynamic linking
In computing, a dynamic linker is the part of an operating system that loads and links the shared libraries needed by an executable when it is executed (at " run time"), by copying the content of libraries from persistent storage to RAM, filling ...
) rather than the
static binding that was favoured in
monolithic 16-bit MS-DOS applications. Static binding is still favoured by some native code developers but does not generally provide the degree of
code reuse
In software development (and computer programming in general), code reuse, also called software reuse, is the use of existing software, or software knowledge, to build new software, following the reusability principles.
Code reuse may be achie ...
required by newer best practices like the
Capability Maturity Model (CMM).
MS-DOS support was still provided with the release of Microsoft's first C++ Compiler, MSC 7, which was backwardly compatible with the C programming language and MS-DOS and supported both 16- and 32-bit code generation.
MSC took over where
Aztec C86 left off. The market share for C compilers had turned to cross compilers which took advantage of the latest and greatest Windows features, offered C and C++ in a single bundle, and still supported MS-DOS systems that were already a decade old, and the smaller companies that produced compilers like Aztec C could no longer compete and either turned to niche markets like
embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' ...
s or disappeared.
MS-DOS and 16-bit code generation support continued until MSC 8.00c which was bundled with Microsoft C++ and Microsoft Application Studio 1.5, the forerunner of
Microsoft Visual Studio which is the cross development environment that Microsoft provide today.
Late 1990s
MSC 12 was released with Microsoft Visual Studio 6 and no longer provided support for MS-DOS 16-bit binaries, instead providing support for 32-bit console applications, but provided support for
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...
and
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...
code generation as well as for
Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system.
The first version of Win ...
. Link libraries were available for other processors that ran Microsoft Windows; a practice that Microsoft continues to this day.
MSC 13 was released with
Visual Studio 2003
The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (th ...
, and MSC 14 was released with
Visual Studio 2005
Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms such ...
, both of which still produce code for older systems like Windows 95, but which will produce code for several target platforms including the mobile market and the
ARM architecture.
.NET and beyond
In 2001 Microsoft developed the
Common Language Runtime (CLR), which formed the core for their
.NET Framework
The .NET Framework (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a proprietary software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It was the predominant implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) until bein ...
compiler in the Visual Studio IDE. This layer on the operating system which is in the
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
allows the mixing of development languages compiled across platforms that run the Windows operating system.
The .NET Framework runtime and CLR provide a mapping layer to the core routines for the processor and the devices on the target computer. The command-line C compiler in Visual Studio will compile native code for a variety of processors and can be used to build the core routines themselves.
Microsoft .NET applications for target platforms like
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants.
Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...
on the
ARM architecture cross-compile on Windows machines with a variety of processors and Microsoft also offer emulators and remote deployment environments that require very little configuration, unlike the cross compilers in days gone by or on other platforms.
Runtime libraries, such as
Mono
Mono may refer to:
Common meanings
* Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease"
* Monaural, monophonic sound reproduction, often shortened to mono
* Mono-, a numerical prefix representing anything single
Music Performers
* Mono (Japanese b ...
, provide compatibility for cross-compiled .NET programs to other operating systems, such as
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
.
Libraries like
Qt and its predecessors including
XVT provide source code level cross development capability with other platforms, while still using Microsoft C to build the Windows versions. Other compilers like
MinGW
MinGW ("Minimalist GNU for Windows"), formerly mingw32, is a free and open source software development environment to create Microsoft Windows applications.
MinGW includes a port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), GNU Binutils for Windows ...
have also become popular in this area since they are more directly compatible with the Unixes that comprise the non-Windows side of software development allowing those developers to target all platforms using a familiar build environment.
Free Pascal
Free Pascal
Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) is a compiler for the closely related programming-language dialects Pascal and Object Pascal. It is free software released under the GNU General Public License, witexception clausesthat allow static linking against its ...
was developed from the beginning as a cross compiler. The compiler executable (ppcXXX where XXX is a target architecture) is capable of producing executables (or just object files if no internal linker exists, or even just assembly files if no internal assembler exists) for all OS of the same architecture. For example, ppc386 is capable of producing executables for i386-linux, i386-win32, i386-go32v2 (DOS) and all other OSes (see
). For compiling to another architecture, however, a cross architecture version of the compiler must be built first. The resulting compiler executable would have additional 'ross' before the target architecture in its name. i.e. if the compiler is built to target x64, then the executable would be ppcrossx64.
To compile for a chosen architecture-OS, the compiler switch (for the compiler driver fpc) -P and -T can be used. This is also done when cross-compiling the compiler itself, but is set via make option CPU_TARGET and OS_TARGET. GNU assembler and linker for the target platform is required if Free Pascal does not yet have internal version of the tools for the target platform.
Clang
Clang is natively a cross compiler, at build time you can select which architectures you want Clang to be able to target.
See also
*
MinGW
MinGW ("Minimalist GNU for Windows"), formerly mingw32, is a free and open source software development environment to create Microsoft Windows applications.
MinGW includes a port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), GNU Binutils for Windows ...
*
Scratchbox
*
Free Pascal
Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) is a compiler for the closely related programming-language dialects Pascal and Object Pascal. It is free software released under the GNU General Public License, witexception clausesthat allow static linking against its ...
*
Cross assembler
In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...
References
External links
Cross Compilation Tools– reference for configuring GNU cross compilation tools
Building Cross Toolchains with gccis a wiki of other GCC cross-compilation references
Scratchboxis a toolkit for Linux cross-compilation to ARM and x86 targets
Grand Unified Builder (GUB)for Linux to cross-compile multiple architectures e.g.:Win32/Mac OS/FreeBSD/Linux used by
GNU LilyPond
LilyPond is a computer program and file format for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand.
LilyPond is cross-pla ...
Crosstoolis a helpful
toolchain
In software, a toolchain is a set of programming tools that is used to perform a complex software development task or to create a software product, which is typically another computer program or a set of related programs. In general, the tools for ...
of
scripts, which create a Linux cross-compile environment for the desired architecture, including embedded systems
crosstool-NGis a rewrite of Crosstool and helps building toolchains.
buildrootis another set of scripts for building a
uClibc
__NOTOC__
In computing, uClibc (sometimes written µClibc) is a small C standard library intended for Linux kernel-based operating systems for embedded systems and mobile devices. uClibc was written to support μClinux, a version of Linux no ...
-based toolchain, usually for embedded systems. It is utilized by
OpenWrt
OpenWrt (from ''open wireless router'') is an open-source project for embedded operating systems based on Linux, primarily used on embedded devices to route network traffic. The main components are Linux, util-linux, musl, and BusyBox. All ...
.
ELDK (Embedded Linux Development Kit) Utilized by
Das U-Boot
Das U-Boot (subtitled "the Universal Boot Loader" and often shortened to U-Boot; see ''History'' for more about the name) is an open-source, primary boot loader used in embedded devices to package the instructions to boot the device's operating ...
.
T2 SDEis another set of scripts for building whole Linux Systems based on either GNU libC, uClibc or dietlibc for a variety of architectures
Cross Linux from Scratch Project* IBM has a very clear structure
tutorialabout cross-building a GCC toolchain.
*
Cross-compilation avec GCC 4 sous Windows pour Linux- A tutorial to build a cross-GCC toolchain, but from Windows to Linux, a subject rarely developed
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cross Compiler
Compiler theory