0

I want to make a text based adventure game for a friend, so everything requiered should be for example on a USB stick.

I know I have to include the libraries to the file, but how do I find the requiered and link them to the original gamefile.

In the moment I use these libraries:

#include <iostream> #include <string> #include <chrono> #include <thread> #include <atomic> #include <condition_variable>

I looked online for the library files and didn't find them. I searched long and didn't any tutorial.

Im using gcc, visual studio code and on windows

Improve this question
8
  • 1
    All of the headers you show are part of C++ standard library. Good news: most compilers link standard library statically, which means it gets bundled together with your program automagically. Bad news: you have to actually compile for correct architecture and operating system of the target computer to have even a chance of it running correctly. Slightly good news: most PCs have x64 architecture, so it's just a matter of compiling for correct OS. Commented Jul 24, 2023 at 15:30
  • 2
    What OS? Every OS has its own rules and procedures for distributing a compiled program. Commented Jul 24, 2023 at 15:50
  • 2
    @Yksisarvinen most compilers i know of default to a shared standard library as it avoids problems when using shared libraries which also use the standard library Commented Jul 24, 2023 at 16:02
  • 1
    Which compiler are you using? You should consult its documentation for how to redistribute the necessary libraries Commented Jul 24, 2023 at 16:03
  • 1
    For msvc you need to install the redistributable. The good thing is since 2015 the same redistributable works for all new versions of msvc: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170 Commented Jul 24, 2023 at 16:10

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

You need to distribute a few .dlls alongside the executable, in the same directory.

ntldd -R my_program.exe will give you a list of DLLs. Out of those, ignore anything that's not in your compiler's bin directory (note that the paths printed by ntldd can be wrong if you have those DLLs in other directories in PATH; so ignore the paths and compare just the filenames).

On my MinGW distribution, this gives me libgcc??.dll, libstdc++??.dll, and libwinpthread??.dll.

#includes are not "libraries", see Is iostream a header or a library. They don't have one-to-one correspondence with the DLLs.

Out of the three DLLs above, libstdc++ is the entirety of the C++ standard library, libwinpthread is the low-level threading library libstdc++ uses under the hood, libgcc contains low-level utilities used by GCC, and the C standard library mostly resides in system-provided DLLs (either msvcrt.dll or ucrtbase.dll, depending on MinGW flavor; you don't need to ship those).

A static linking (via the -static flag) is also an option, which will give you a single self-contained .exe.

But eventually you'll run into the libraries with licenses that discourage static linking (LGPL forces you to share source if you link statically), and/or build systems that don't produce static libraries out of the box (e.g. OpenAL; which uses LGPL), so better not get used to it. Also allowing the user to update the libraries by themselves is a good idea.

Improve this answer
Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

7 Comments

Why the downvote? If there's something wrong here, I can't fix it if I'm not aware of it.
"You need to distribute a few .dlls alongside the executable, in the same directory" - The "in the same directory" bit is not strictly correct. The Runtime loader also looks elsewhere and this is also different with different OS's.
@JesperJuhl "The "in the same directory" bit is not strictly correct" Yep. I wasn't going for formal correctness, just for a practical solution. I think there are no good alternatives either? (Installing DLLs in PATH can cause weird conflicts; are there any other approaches?). "different with different OS's" Mhm, OP said they use Windows. I don't want to get into the can of worms of explaining how to make Linux apps reasonably portable, and I don't know how things work on Mac at all.
"are there any other ways?" - Static linking is an alternative (although not always an option).
Yeah, I know. It's not trivial, but it's not exactly impossible either. I tend to just bundle whatever I need with my app and load the libraries relative to my install directory. That avoids most issues. Not the way to go for an open source app of course, but for a commercial app it works just fine :) In any case; an upvote for your answer :)
|
-2

You do not need to share those libraries with your friend if all your friend wants to do is run your game. Once you have finished your game, you compile it into an executable (eg. a .exe file in Windows) and all your friend has to do is run the executable.

If you were to use other third-party libraries, then you might have to include them as .dll files together with your executable. However this should not be the case with standard libraries.

Hope this helps.

Improve this answer

2 Comments

The compilers runtime libraries are usually needed unless you statically link them (which is not always possible and usually not the default).
Also, you seem to assume a Windows environment, but it is not at all clear from the question whether that's a valid assumption.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.