Using libraries

Hi, I'm kind of new to C and completely new to Wii programming but I have a fair bit of experience with other languages and am very enthusiastic about learning. So, over the past two days I've made a program that will download a file you specify (see here) and experienced my fair share of code dumps and infinite loops. Fun times.

Anyway, this is all in preparation of writing an RSS reader/web browser (let it never be said that I pick easy first projects ;-) ). This will be a lot easier if I can use some libraries, but I don't really know how to use stuff that's not included with devkitppc. I want to use mini-xml, but I don't know how to get started. Do I need to recompile this for PPC or anything, or basically how should I proceed?

Edit: Solved by people on #wiidev, at least for the time being. Someone already ported mxml to Wii, and it is here: [code.google.com] . But I still would be interested in general links on how libraries work, how to compile them, how to create them, etc.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2009 12:03AM by iofthestorm.

First off, we're always talking C/C++ code here (eg: x86 ASM is a no-go).

For compiling existing libraries for use on the Wii, see the set of instructions I included in the Freetype compile I did. This applies to other libraries as well. They call this "cross-compiling" - meaning compiling on one architecture (eg: x86) for another (PPC). Some libraries compile without any modifications required, while others may have "endian" issues, in which case the code needs to be modified to use big-endian. There may be other incompatibilities for various reasons (eg: C standards, buffer sizes, file access code, etc). But, again, many of the well-established and better written libraries already avoid these issues.

For using a library, you need to include it in your makefile (eg: -lmxml), and use an #include for the .h file.

For making your own Wii library, there are some best-practices (eg: global vars are bad), and other than that, just compile your code into a .a file, and you're ready to go! A library as far as the Wii is concerned is just some precompiled code, very little black arts voodoo magic is involved. ;)

I don't know x86 asm unfortunately, only a little MIPS ;-). Cool, thanks for the info. I still don't quite understand how you compile to a .a file, but I'll probably look more into it later. Is a .a file the same as a .dol but not executable or something? And isn't compiling for the wii on your PC already cross compiling anyway?