Lesson 0: Mac Command Line

Thu Aug 15, 2013

To build the projects on OS X we’ll be using a simple makefile that will include the framework for us. The makefile assumes you’ve installed SDL following the instructions in the .dmg file on the SDL2 downloads page and now have it available as a framework.

If you’re unfamiliar with Makefiles a basic introduction can be found here.

The Makefile

CXX = clang++
SDL = -framework SDL2
# If your compiler is a bit older you may need to change -std=c++11 to -std=c++0x
CXXFLAGS = -Wall -c -std=c++11
LDFLAGS = $(SDL)
EXE = SDL_Lesson0

all: $(EXE)

$(EXE): main.o
	$(CXX) $(LDFLAGS) $< -o $@

main.o: main.cpp
	$(CXX) $(CXXFLAGS) $< -o $@

clean:
	rm *.o && rm $(EXE)

The Test Program

The program we’re building for this lesson is a simple sanity check for SDL. It will initialize the SDL video subsystem, check for any errors and then quit. The source file should be titled main.cpp, or you can change the main.o build dependency in the makefile to match your source file.

#include <iostream>
#include <SDL2/SDL.h>

/*
 * Lesson 0: Test to make sure SDL is setup properly
 */
int main(int, char**){
	if (SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) != 0){
		std::cout << "SDL_Init Error: " << SDL_GetError() << std::endl;
		return 1;
	}
	SDL_Quit();
	return 0;
}

The program should run successfully but nothing should appear to happen if you’ve configured everything properly. If an error occurs make sure you’ve followed all the setup steps properly.

End of Lesson 0

If you’re having any trouble setting up SDL please send an email or tweet.

I’ll see you again soon in Postscript 0: Properly Finding Resource Paths!