6-29-03 C++ .NET

By poking around, I discovered that this does appear to come with the C++ compiler. If you look at C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v1.1\Bin\sdkvars.bat, (the various path entries you need to make to your environment), you'll see that some of them are for cl, the Microsoft command-line compiler for C++. And sure enough, after setting these PATH, INCLUDE and LIB variables, I was able to compile the following C++ program:

class Test {
  int i;
public:
  Test(int v) : i(v) {}
  void set(int v) { i = v; }
  int get() { return i; }
};

int main() {
  Test t(1);
  t.set(2);
  int x = t.get();
}

Ah, but if you try to do anything more complex than this -- anything with C++ include files, for example -- you immediately run into a wall. There are include files in the paths given, but these are only C include files, not C++. So I was able to do this:

#include <stdio.h>

class Test {
  int i;
public:
  Test(int v) : i(v) {}
  void set(int v) { i = v; }
  int get() { return i; }
  void print() { printf("i = %d\n", i); }
};

int main() {
  Test t(1);
  t.print();
  t.set(2);
  t.print();
  int x = t.get();
  printf("x = %d\n", x);
}

But as soon as I tried a #include <iostream> or even the old-style #include <iostream.h>, it couldn't be found. So what you actually get with the free .NET SDK is the C++ compiler enabled only as a C compiler.

Because we freely distribute the electronic version of Thinking in C++, Volume 2 and source code, we're always looking for ways for underfunded readers to compile the code. Of course, when you install most Linuxes you get the most recent version of G++, which works. Under windows, the command-line version of the Borland C++ compiler can be freely downloaded and works with the code. If you install Cygwin (a personal favorite of mine, since it solves so many Windows problems for me) on your Windows platform, you get a Unix shell running under Windows, including the g++ 3.2 compiler, which also works on TIC++V2.

William D. Tanksley, Jr. Sent me the following solution:
http://winprog.org/tutorial/msvc.html
This page says that you can download the .NET stuff, then download the Platform SDK (both free), and you'll then have a complete SDK, with all the libraries and include files.