How to write portable code in c++?

Question

What are the things that I should keep in mind to write portable code? Since I\'m a c++ beginner, I want to practice it since beginning.

Thanks.

Answer 1

For learning, try to avoid books that concentrate on one implementation. In some cases, the introduction or an early chapter will give you some instructions on how to get or use a language implementation; if it mentions more than one implementation you're probably OK.

Get a reference book that's platform-independent. Stroustrup's The C++ Programming Language is a fine reference, although it's not a good book for a beginner to try to learn from. Don't rely on references for a given implementation. MSDN is useful, for example, but its main focus is how to write Windows programs using Visual C++, not how to write programs that will compile and run anywhere.

To write anything really useful, you're going to have to get into nonportable code. Try to get in the habit of separating the user interface code from everything else, since that's where you'll have the least compatibility. The less code you have to change between platforms, the more portable your code is.