Windows -> Solaris 5.X C++ cross compiler recomendation

Question

I have neved did a cross platform development before but the process we currently employ such as doing the development on a Windows machine (as we are mostly a Windows shop) and then actually building the binaries on a Solaris box looks a bit convoluted to me.

Can you recomend me a cross compiler so I can limit development tasks to a Windows machine (e.g. building Solaris binaries (.so)), and only use Solaris machine for a testing and deployment.

It would also be great to be able to test a resulting binaries on a Windows machine before (e.g. dependencies b/w binaries) deploying them into the Solaris box, but it looks like I am asking for too much.

Answer 1

Why not use a tool like cruisecontrol to build your apps for you simultanously on both platforms. Doing it this way makes it easier to add more platforms in the future.

Failing that you could use cygwin or mingw to build on windows only for development, then build your real distribution on solaris.

I don't know anything about cross compilers as I've never used therm, sorry

Answer 2

I don't know if a Windows/Cygwin hosted compiler that targets Solaris exists as a ready-to-use product, in any case some googling around didn't give any results.

However, I do have some experience with the creation of gcc&friends based toolchains that run under Cygwin and target Linux platforms (i386 and ARM). When your target is Linux, there's a tool called crosstool that automates a lot of the work that needs to be done, so basically with a reasonably fast machine, a healthy dose of patience and a (longish) evening of build runs you'll be able to build a usable toolchain.

Although in theory you could mimic what crosstool does to create your own cygwin to solaris toolchain, I'm afraid that in practice it may just not be worth the effort.