Question

I’ve run into an issue with writing some code in c. My basic problem is that I am pressed for time and the code I am dealing with has lots of bugs which I have to “erradicate” before tomorrow evening.

The bigger part of the problem is that there is no adequate IDE that can do real time debugging, especially when using threads or spawning processes with fork(). I tried Mono, Eclipse, and finally NetBeans, and have concluded that those are very good but not for coding in C. More over the learning curve to utilize the command line debugger properly is quite steep. (Like I mentioned earlier… I am pressed on time.)

So, since I am a C# developer by profession I was wondering whether I can pull this off in VS2003/VS2005/VS2008/VS2010. If I abstain from using system calls, can I do this?

Of particular interest are FILE* descriptor and fread(), fclose(), fseek() methods. I know they are part of the standard C library, however are they tied to the platform itself? Are the headers the same in Linux vs Windows? What about fork() or shared memory?

Maybe if I use VS2010 to build parts of the component at a time (by mocking inputs and stuff), debug those, and then migrate the working code in the overall Linux project would prove most useful?

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

The bigger part of the problem is that there is no adequate IDE that can do real time debugging, especially when using threads or spawning processes with fork().

The Eclipse CDT would probably have the best overall support for C/C++ development and integrated debugging.

Note that multithreaded and multiprocess debugging can be difficult at the best of times. Investing in a good logging framework would be advisable at this point, and probably more useful than relying on a debugger. There are many to choose from – have a look at Log4C++ and so on. Even printf in a pinch can be invaluable.

So, since I am a C# developer by profession I was wondering whether I can pull this off in VS2003/VS2005/VS2008/VS2010. If I abstain from using system calls, can I do this?

If you take care to only use portable calls and not Win32-specific APIs, you should be ok. Also, there are many libraries (for C++ libraries such as Boost++ that provide a rich set of functionality which work the same on Windows, Linux and others.

Of particular interest are FILE* descriptor and fread(), fclose(), fseek() methods. I know they are part of the standard C library, however are they tied to the platform itself? Are the headers the same in Linux vs Windows? What about fork() or shared memory?

Yes, the file I/O functions you mention are in <stdio.h> and part of the portable standard C library. They work essentially the same on both Windows and Linux, and are not tied to a particular platform.

However, fork() and the shared memory functions shmget() are POSIX functions, available on *nix platforms but not natively on Windows. The Cygwin project provides implementations of these functions in a library for ease of porting.

If you are using C++, Boost++ will give you portable versions of all these system-level calls.

Maybe if I use VS2010 to build parts of the component at a time (by mocking inputs and stuff), debug those, and then migrate the working code in the overall Linux project would prove most useful?

You could certainly do that. Just be mindful that Visual Studio has a tendency to lead you down the Win32 path, and you must be vigilant to not start using non-portable functions. Fortunately the library reference on MSDN gives you the compatibility information. In general, using standard C or POSIX calls will be portable. In my experience, it is actually easier to write on *nix and port to Windows, but YMMV.