xcode's executable product for c++ project

Question

Hello, everyone...

I've completed a simple numbers-version of the game "Towers of Hanoi" using xcode's command line tool in C++. Being accustomed to PC compilers like borland's and visual-c, I've attempted to "share" the game with others via e-mail by simply attaching the executable product built by xcode. However, the recipients can't run the program as it shows up in a different format - usually machine code, it sounds like.

After a bit of extensive searching, I'm realizing the complexity of building projects within xcode's IDE and the variations on the build settings/ targets, etc.

Anyone know how to build a self-contained c++ executable to be universally run? I don't go outside the STL library for this game. I'd greatly appreciate any help.

thanks

Answer 1

Sharing applications across dot releases of the same OS can be notoriously difficult on the Mac (at least, as far as personal experience goes).

In order to be able to share your application with the least amount of effort, you will need to figure out:

• What project type is this? Are you using any resources like images etc?
• What version of the OS your friends are using? If they are not on the Mac, you're out of luck (or you'll have to recompile for their OS-es).
• If they run Mac, check out that you have the same OS versions, if you have developed on Leopard and someone's running on SnowLeopard your application might simply fail. (I also ran into issues between Mac OS 10.5.4 and 10.5.3 so keep your fingers crossed.)
• Check out what sort of hardware you are running. Are you building for your hardware (say, MacIntel) only or are you creating an Universal Binary?
• Make sure that all resources are packaged into your application bundle. Make sure your application uses only relative paths.
• Check if you are not writing to special folders (i.e. use only temp and/or word-writable locations, if you need to).

I wish I could give a more detailed/to the point reply but unfortunately you'll have to figure out some of the answers yourself (without any other specific information about the error you are getting).

Answer 2

OS X is based on Unix, which uses plain binary files (i.e. no filename extension) as executables. If they have a certain "executable permission," they can be double-clicked to be run as executables, or run from the command line. However, this permission can't be sent over email - it's metadata within the file system itself, and this makes sense from a security standpoint (you wouldn't want spammers sending you executable viruses over email right?). So when the recipient receives the binary, they'll need to run the following command line command on it, assuming "hanoi" is the name of the binary file:

chmod +x /path/to/hanoi

If you really want to package it as an instantly double-clickable application, you'll need to give it a native UI and package it as a .app, then put that .app (which is actually a folder with the .app extension) in an archive to distribute. Sorry if that's more work than you were hoping for. Hope this helps!

Answer 3

If you're satisfied with a command line tool rather than a double-clickable app, it should suffice to zip it and attach that to the e-mail. Be sure to build universal if anyone you're sending to might be using a PowerPC-based Mac. Oh, and set the deployment target to the minimum OS that any recipient might be using.