EQUIP2 C++ Introduction

Introduction

EQUIP v.1 was originally written in C++ and then ported to Java. The two versions then had to be maintained and cross-patched in parallel. This tended not to work. Later on the Java version was ported to C# with the help of the Visual Studio porting tool, plus manual fix-ups. This suffered from the same problems, and the Java version is now the only stable/reliable/maintained version.

To avoid this issue, for EQUIP2, I have written a Java-to-C++ translator, which will convert the Java reference version to C++, currently targetting Posix/Unix, Windows OS and Symbian (used on mobile phones).

If you haven't already, you should probably now look at EQUIP2_CPP_Programming.html before coming back here for build information.

This means all cross-language development should be done on the Java version!!

This can currently be obtained from the same CVS as EQUIP2 in the parallel javatrans directory:

CVSROOT :pserver:anonymous@dumas.mrl.nott.ac.uk:/mrl/src/cvsroot
/Equator/javatrans

Documentation

Building the C++ version

You need a version of javatrans (as above), compiled, and the javasupport library compiled - see Javatrans_introduction.html

You need to set the property javatranshome in ../build.properties to point to this javatrans installation (its top-level directory).

The translation is supported by the equip2 ANT build file, in particular:

• ant cpp - compile the translated subset of equip2 (ant cpp_compile) and translate using javatrans (ant cpp_generate).

The java subset of equip2 to be translated will be compiled into build.cpp/classes. The generated c++ files will be placed in build.cpp/src.cpp; headers will be copied over to dist/include. Similarly, a minimal interface/implementation of Log4j is comiled into build.cpp/log4j.classes, C++ files generated in build.cpp/log4j.src.cpp ; headers will be copied over to dist/include. Similarly, tests are comiled into build.cpp/test.classes, C++ files generated in build.cpp/test.src.cpp

These can be compiled by target platform-specific scripts in the subdirectories of the top-level targets/ directory, currently:

• targets/win32/
• these require the environment variable JAVATRANSHOME to be set as per the javatranshome property, above
• buildlog4j-win32.bat - compiles the translated log4j subset to make dist/win32/log4j.dll and .lib (for win32)
  
• buildequip2-win32.bat - compiles the equip2 sources to make the dist/win32/equip2.dll and .lib (for win32); this requires that the minimal log4j implementation has already been built.
• buildequip2test-win32.bat - compiles the tests to the main executable dist/win32/equip2test.exe.
• targets/unix/
• these require the environment variable JAVATRANSHOME to be set as per the javatranshome property, above
• buildlog4j.sh - dist/unix/liblog4j.a
  
• buildequip2.sh - dist/unix/libequip2.a
• buildequip2test.sh - dist/unix/libequip2test.a

Known issues

• See general Javatrans known issues, Javatrans_introduction.html
• I have only tried porting a subset of EQUIP2 - the main APIs and the default (transient) dataspace. In other words there is currently no persistent C++ dataspace implementation. This will require more supporting classes to be implemented (e.g. java.io.File, java.io.FileInput/OutputStream) and/or a new native C++ implementation using OS-specific APIs (the best option on Symbian, I think).
• I have not attempted to port PART (yet), so no networking support.
• The Java version includes Javadoc documentation (in the source code and available as generated web-pages using the Javadoc tool); these are not copied into the C++ version, so you must refer to these directly for method and class usage.
  

Change log

• exceptions now ok
  

• documented multiple targets structure
  

• added links to EQUIP2_CPP_Programming.html
  

• added log4j notes
  

• added local build information
  

• This document created.