EasyLocal++ Installation for Microsoft Visual C++

What is needed

In order to install and use EasyLocal++ you must be sure that the target machine provides, at least, the following components:

A zip format unpacking utility (e.g. the WinZip available from http://www.winzip.com)
Microsoft Visual Studio version > 6.0
Microsoft Visual C++ compiler version > 6.0

In addition, EasyLocal++ relies on the following two utilities, which are provided in binary format in the package.:

GNU bison version > 1.28
GNU flex version > 2.5

The framework has been tested with the above specified configuration, although, in principle, it could be used with different compilers and different versions of the above mentioned tools. In fact, the framework has been developed exploiting only the C++ standard classes and the STL library. Yet, the details on how to port the framework on different compilers/tools platform is out of the scope of this document.
Installing EasyLocal++

To install the framework you have to unpack the file miniEasyLocalpp-0.2.zip in the target directory using the zip format unpacking utility (see the tool documentation for learning how to make it).

This step will create a directory called miniEasyLocal++/ which contains the entire distribution tree.

Compiling the EasyLocal++ library

Once you are sure that the suite of tools required are provided you have two options for compiling the library.

The first option is to open the miniEasyLocal++ project within the Microsoft Visual C++ IDE. To this aim, you can simply double-click on the miniEasyLocal.dsw file in the root directory of the distribution. Then, for building the library, it remains to select the build libEasyLocal.lib command from the IDE Build menu.

The alternative option consists in opening a command shell (e.g. executing the command command) and then in running the nmake utility.

The outcome of the compilation is the static library libEasyLocal.lib, which must be linked with every file that uses the framework classes. Namely, it contains all the class implementations that do not need to be instantiated at the compile time (i.e., no template classes), and the compiled version of the ExpSpec language interpreter.

Using the framework

In order to use the EasyLocal++ classes in an application the following steps are needed:

Add the #include <EasyLocal>directive in any file that uses the framework classes This directive automatically includes the appropriate header file that contains the interface of the classes and the code file which contains the template implementations (that need to be instantiated at the compile time).
Set the compiler to look for the EasyLocal++ files by adding the option /I<EasyLocal++ directory>\src to the compilation command line or setting appropriately the option in the Visual C++ IDE (namely it is the Preprocessor option in the C/C++ tab of the project's settings).
Link the object files of your application with the EasyLocal++ library by adding the file libEasyLocal.lib to the linking command line or adding it to the project's file list.

Last modified: May 31 2004 13:06:25.

© 1998-2004 Andrea Schaerf & Luca Di Gaspero
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica, Gestionale e Meccanica
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