Thread: how to Ensure my program works across platforms??

how to Ensure my program works across platforms? namely, win98se and winxp?

i know the easiest way to do is to simply test them across, but is there a better way?

i work on my program at home using winxp and go down to my office (with win 98se) once a week to test my work

since win98se is an older platform, the stuff i work on winxp might not always work on win98se

some stuff i know:
- when putting in new functions, check the function documentation to see if it works on the platform
- if function doesnt work, try a work around using other functions

does vc++6.0 SP6 have a "check across platform" function in it?
OR if not, is that a program/plugin (preferbly free because i am not paid for my work) that checks whether my code works on win98se and hopefully report the snippets of codes that doesnt work or the extra stuff that needs to be installed before it works? because i dont wanna go down to my office to find that whatever worked at home doesnt work in the office.




2nd qns : what does the following means? does it mean i gotta install extra stuff on win98se before the function works?

Requirements
Client: Requires Windows XP, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows NT Workstation, Windows Me, Windows 98, or Windows 95.
Server: Requires Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 Server, or Windows NT Server.
Unicode: Implemented as Unicode and ANSI versions. Note that Unicode support on Windows Me/98/95 requires Microsoft Layer for Unicode.Header: Declared in Winnetwk.h.
Library: Use Mpr.lib.

using :
- winxp at home, win98se at office
- vc++6.0 SP6
- MFC style

thanks in advance! :wave:

The compiler hides a lot from you, but Win9X and XP are two completely different OSs under the hood. There are ways to write things 'platform independant' (most people think of this is *nix, Mac and Windows compatiblity, so googling on those keywords ain't likely to get you want you want), but I don't know of any tutorials off-hand. You might want to google on Win9X and Win2K/XP/NT compatiblity to see if you can find some tutorials.

and what about windows-linux compability? i'm using dev-c++, it says that any application i write in windows will work in linux (if i don't use any extra windows functions (windows.h etc..)).. but once i try to load the program from linux he just says that it's a "windows application" and asks me what to run it with (im a linux noob..)

You must stick with ANSI or POSIX (poor POSIX support on Windows) in order to move programs between Windows and Linux and you MUST recompile!

Some good programming discipline will go a long way toward making life easier to write for both platforms.

a) Write as much as possible in ANSI C++.
b) Isolate the platform dependent code. This is where the object-oriented facilities come in very handy. You have one abstract interface, and you rely on some concrete, platform-dependent code a layer down to get done what you need.

just write standard ANSI C++ code (like everybody else said) and it'll work. of course, you're going to have to recompile on each platform you want to run it on (as everybody already said as well)

if you follow the standards and keep away from non-portable solutions, you'll be fine on other platforms.

Dev-C++ uses GCC, which is the main compiler used on linux.