How is platoform porting done?

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There is this project that is only for Windows and its made in C++ and its open source.
I want to port it to OSX.
How would I go about doing this?
Sorry, if this is an ignorent question.

That really depends on exactly what "only for Windows" means.

Each call made to the Windows API will require substitutions to be made for the OSX equivalents, and those with no direct equivalent will require stub code or wrappers to simulate them in OSX. If it's also using something like DirectX or other Windows-specific libraries then you have an even bigger problem.
Other than that, and provided no fancy compiler-specific tricks are being pulled with the code generally, the rest should just compile as-is since C++ on one platform 'should' be the same as C++ on a different one.

[Edited for clarity and typo]

Last edited by Cornflake on 24 Aug 2011, 7:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

There is a part of the wine project called winelib that might help with the porting if you can run the app under wine on a mac.

^^ That's executing a binary compiled for one OS on a different one.
Porting is recompiling the source on another OS and generating a native binary for that OS.

From the Winelib User's Guide:

So it actually does involve compiling for the native OS. Basically, wine has lots of the windows API implemented for unix already, so lots of the 'stub code and wrappers' you mentioned would be already written.

Of course, wine isn't perfect, as it has unimplemented functions and bugs, but it would probably save a lot of time and effort for porting non-platform-independent windows code.

Can I ask what the project is?

Notepad++

Ok... Why?

That would be like using a hammer to paint a wall. What functionality do you miss when using Linux? Chances are it has already been implemented in a Linux editor in some way.

From a quick google search, it appears that Notepad++ runs under wine. If you just want to get it to run on your machine, installing wine would probably make it just work, and if you still want to port it, it might just be a matter of recompiling with winelib.

Oh, Ok - fair enough.
I was thinking somewhat smaller than that but it involved a bit of re-inventing the wheel...

Yep, I've used Wine.
But since the application is Notepad++ I'd expect a relatively minimal dependence on Windows support (basic I/O, file, mouse and window handling) so that should help make it a bit more do-able and as you've said, it already runs under Wine.

@Madbones: Why not just give this a try instead? It might save many headaches for little return. http://www.jedit.org/index.php

Aha!
Thanks.
Just used it looks awesome.
Thanks again.