How to Keep the Binary Compatibility of C++ Based Objects

This chapter proposes the binary compatibility object model for C++ (BiCOMC) to pro- vide the binary compatibility of software components in order to share objects among C++ based executable files such as .exe, .dll, and .so. In addition, the proposed model provides the method overriding and overloading, multiple inheritance, and exception handling. This chapter illustrates how to use the proposed model via a simple example in the Windows and Linux environment. The proposed method is validated by application examples and comparisons with known object models such as C++, COM, and CCC in terms of the call time of a method during execution and the binary compatibility such as reusability due to interface version and the types of compilers. Also this chapter shows that BiCOMC-based components compiled with Microsoft Visual C++ and GCC can call each other and the interface version problems are resolved. Tables 1 – 3 , it can be seen that the BiCOMC provides better binary compatibility in a Windows environment than object models in C++, COM, and CCC, which are compiled in GCC, MSVC, and ICC. The BiCOMC was compared with C++, COM, and CCC in terms of the call times of methods during run time. The results showed that the call time of the BiCOMC was similar to C++/COM. In other words, the application examples and the evaluation results verified that the proposed method was provided for the binary compatibility among different types of compilers. In future we will develop and distribute BiCOMC-based components for various applica tions such as industrial/medical robot applications and factory/home automation application, which can be used regardless of the types of compilers.