Cross-platform C++ command line utility

Question

I need to develop a Windows/Linux command line utility. The utility will talk to middleware that has a standard API on both platforms. I have done some cross-platform development before, on FreeBSD/Linux, which was considerably easier - and I had people in the group with experience that I could talk to.

At this point there is no one in my group who has tackled a Windows/Linux development project. I am looking for advice on how to best set it up. I'm kind of a newbie to C++ too, I have mostly developed C#/.Net GUI applications and Linux device driver level "stuff". Kind of a weird mix.

I was thinking that it would be best to define my own data types and not use either the Linux or the Windows defined types - keep the OS specific code in separate folders and include conditionally. That's kind of what we did for the Linux/BSD work. So it seemed like a good start.

One of the developers here is a big fan of Boost... another thought the TCLAP command line parser library was easier to use... Obviously everything has to be compatible with the licensing.

The code will be open sourced, but it is production code - so I don't want to be sloppy. What else should I be doing or looking for? Are there any best practices out there?

Answer 1

Boost is good, as is ACE. Between the 2 of those they cover pretty much anything you would want to do in a cross-platform manner. I have also gone the route of getting posix libraries for windows and using gcc on cygwin, but I don't recommend it.

Answer 2

Use a portable runtime that is supported on both platforms. I have had good luck with the Apache Portable Runtime.