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  • Author Author: Jan Cumps
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Try out C++20 Preview: set up a development environment

Jan Cumps

C++ is regularly revised. The current set of proposals are under review. They are called C++20.

There are a few of the proposals that I'd like to try out.

Some simplify object handling. Other move algorithms from run-time to compile time solve.

 

Microsoft and GCC (and others) released a compiler that supports many of the preview options.

Check here for an overview of which compiler supports what.

 

Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition comes with the compiler built-in, if you select the Desktop Development with C++ workload.

By default, the preview options are disabled. Yoou can enable them by selecting your project properties, and navigate to:

Configuration Properties -> C/C++ / Language -> C++ Language Standard.

Then select Preview.

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That's it. You can now write programs that use C++20 constructs.

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For GCC, I used Eclipse 2020-12 for C/C++ developers as IDE and GCC 10.2.0 running in Cygwin64.

To install Eclipse, you download the zip and extract it.

To install the latest GCC in Cygwin, run its Setup program. Select GCC, then proceed to install version 10.2.0.

You can check the results:

$ cygcheck -c gcc-core gcc-g++

 

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Start Eclipse, and create a new C++ Managed Build project.

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For the first project, check the Cygwin settings.

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Same as in Visual Studio, the C++20 constructs are disabled by default.

Navigate to Project - C/C++ Builod -> Settings -> Tool Settings -> Cygwin C++ Compiler -> Dialect.

Select ISO C++ 20

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You can now write and debug code with the C++20 options.

Eclipse 2020-12 is not officially released. I witnessed some bugs:

- the editor screen sometimes shows warnings and errors while the compilation and build is clean.

- when debugging, at the end of the main program the debugger is somewhat confused if you step beyond the return().

None of these impact the fun.

image

 

 

There are more options that the two setups that I tried.

 

For the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBoard, Harting Mica, AVNET IIOT GateWay, ...  fanboys

 

The GCC version 10 Windows cross-compiler that supports C++ 20 is now available:

https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/open-source-software/developer-tools/gnu-toolchain/gnu-a/downloads

 

Select this package: Windows (mingw-w64-i686) hosted cross compilers -> AArch32 target with hard float (arm-none-linux-gnueabihf).

Unzip it on your development windows PC, running the extractor program as administrator (so that symbolic links are properly replicated).

Then: build and debug your first GCC 10 Arm program from Windows and Eclipse.

 

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In G++ Dialect, enable the c++20 options

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You can now compile c++20 programs for your Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, ...

 

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image: a c++20 program running on the AVNET SmartEdge IIOT Garteway

 

Set the appropriate debugger executable in the debug configuration:

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Voila.

Parents
  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    What happened:

    • One of my children had a defect laptop, and she needed a working one because in her last year of study.
    • HP declined support a week after purchase because a user issue (it turned out to be a real hardware issue - defect hard disk -  on the freshly purchased laptop but that is how the world turns if you have a student. HP and the reseller in Belgium are worthless if you are a customer).
    • I bought a new laptop so she could graduate.
    • Fixed the hardware issue without the support of HP and the reseller. With a solder iron.
    • Replaced Windows with Linux.

     

    Now I have a linux system that's strong enough to run a desktop and development  environment.

     

    No thanks at all to HP who declined service for a one week old laptop with a defect hard disk and no thanks at all to Van Den Borre Nieuwstraat Brussel where I purchased more than 5.000 Euro in year (including the laptop)  and could not care a single damn.

    Thank you to the internet friends that learned me how to fix.

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    Sorry to hear that, but glad you solved it all!

    That's not good to hear that HP and the reseller behaved like that.

    For sure there are often legal recourses if suppliers don't do the right thing, but that's not always practical especially when something is needed urgently for study/exams, and the supplier didn't support you at all it seems : (

  • in reply to shabaz

    I use my wallet to solve this kind of issues. You always loose when going legal as a customer. Because the % you invest in a lawsuit as a customer always exceeds the % lost by the sellers, by many orders of magnitude (their lawyers are already in the budget. wether you sue them or not). If you win.

    Not buying from them again, and being an ass on the internet, works better. A least it doesn't cost additional money.

Comment
  • in reply to shabaz

    I use my wallet to solve this kind of issues. You always loose when going legal as a customer. Because the % you invest in a lawsuit as a customer always exceeds the % lost by the sellers, by many orders of magnitude (their lawyers are already in the budget. wether you sue them or not). If you win.

    Not buying from them again, and being an ass on the internet, works better. A least it doesn't cost additional money.

Children
  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    You're absolutely right, and good to call out the supplier like this.

    To shout out a good supplier - in the UK there's a chain store called John Lewis, and while it costs more to buy from there, they are famous for service. A couple of weeks ago I purchased an adapter cable (to connect PC to monitor) and it was a £35 ($40) part, which seems expensive, but I tried a £20 no-name cable from an Amazon seller (it has electronics inside, it is not just a connector and wires, it is USB-C to to HDMI) and it worked for only a week). Anyway I purchased the £35 one, and the wrong model arrived (intended for the previous model of the laptop). John Lewis unusually took a week to reply, so when I asked what was going on, they gave me £20 credit, and posted a replacement, and no need to return the old cable.

    Unfortunately the new one was the wrong previous model too, so clearly they had a stock issue and they refunded me totally. So, I now have two cables worth £70, and £20 credit, and it's cost me nothing.

    Out of desperation I opened up and tried one of the cables, and it seems to work. Hopefully it works longer than a week. Anyway for this reason I like using John Lewis especially for tech stuff that I would find hard to open and repair myself. I will return the unused adapter cable when I next visit a John Lewis store, if they take it back, but probably their systems are not geared up for that though.

  • in reply to shabaz

    It's not common business practice, luckily.

    I purchased a smart ID scanner on the internet from an abroad  (eastern Europe)  supplier, where an obscure use case on Linux caused an issue.

    They released a dedicated program just to fix that.

  • in reply to shabaz

    I try and use John Lewis as well for anything.  Service is always excellent and the staff - at least in the MK store - are always smiling and happy and that has to tell you something!

     

    I can’t bear bad service.  I don’t care about problems arising because that happens - how they deal with it is more important.  These days it doesn’t take much to call out bad service like Jan has.