Re: Cocoa/GNUStep compatible build

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 2 Sep 2012, at 13:49, pepijn de vos wrote:

> Hey,
> 
> I want to write a command line app in Objective C that needs to run on Linux 
> and Mac. I read I can use Foundation on Linux using GNUStep.
> 
> Do I need the whole of GNUStep, or can I just depend on Foundation?

All you need are gnustep-make and gnustep-base (Foundation), plus a working 
objc compiler/runtime of course.  GNU/Linux systems generally come with an objc 
development package though.

> Can I use ARC, and is that recommended?

You can only use ARC if you get an additional compiler (recent clang) and the 
latest GNUstep libobjct2 runtime.  So if you want to keep dependencies to a 
minimum and maximise portabiity you can't use it.

> Why do I need to source GNUStep-make?

You source GNUstep.sh to set up your environment so that the gnustep libraries 
will be found at runtime ... but this is not necessary if you have installed 
gnustep so that the operating system knows where the base library is (usually 
its directory needs to be listed in etc/ld.so.conf).

> Should I use GNUStep-make on Mac too?

Your choice ... it should work fine and be simple to maintain, but you can have 
dual build systems if you prefer.

> How? I'm using Homebrew, which does not have it. I read the Macports one, and 
> it uses gnu-gnu-gnu. Does the mean I build against GNUStep on Mac too, 
> instead of Cocoa?

You don't want gnu-gnu-gnu on a mac.  But all you should need to do is 
configure/install gnustep-make normally (ie without special config options) to 
have it use the Apple Foundation and objc runtime on a Mac.