[Question] How do you recommend switching compiler backends for cross-platform builds

[BlueFalconHD]

I am building a C program on macOS and I'd like to cross-compile it for Windows. I'd use clang (which works well for macOS and Linux builds) and mingw (x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc) for Windows builds. However mate.h hardcodes the names for these commands as seen below:

String CompilerToStr(Compiler c) {
  switch (c) {
  case GCC:   return S("gcc");
  case CLANG: return S("clang");
  case TCC:   return S("tcc");
  case MSVC:  return S("cl.exe");
  }
}

So I am stuck symlinking gcc to x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc and adding that to path if I want to compile for Windows. Is there a better way I am missing?

Additionally, because of my requirements I almost need Mate's rebuilding functionality and the executable's building functionality to have completely separate compiler configurations.

[TomasBorquez]

This compiler hard coding is what leads to C++ being harder to add so cross compiling is also an issue, for the moment no way to fix this, you can always change what GCC returns and just return x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc, the thing is you want to still compile mate with gcc so you would also have to change it on rebuild

[BlueFalconHD]

This compiler hard coding is what leads to C++ being harder to add so cross compiling is also an issue, for the moment no way to fix this, you can always change what GCC returns and just return x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc, the thing is you want to still compile mate with gcc so you would also have to change it on rebuild

Are there plans to solve this in the future?

[TomasBorquez]

This compiler hard coding is what leads to C++ being harder to add so cross compiling is also an issue, for the moment no way to fix this, you can always change what GCC returns and just return x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc, the thing is you want to still compile mate with gcc so you would also have to change it on rebuild

Are there plans to solve this in the future?

cpp support is planned so I'll make sure to fix this at the same time in that PR

[BlueFalconHD]

I just had a thought, this might be stupid, but would it be possible to use preprocessor conditionals in Mate which embed some special details in the built binary which indicate the compiler used to compile Mate initially?

[TomasBorquez]

I just had a thought, this might be stupid, but would it be possible to use preprocessor conditionals in Mate which embed some special details in the built binary which indicate the compiler used to compile Mate initially?

you could technically compile mate.c with flags that define macros with -DMACRO, but there is no way to see which compiler was used initially from macros alone, though it could be stored in mate.ini, anyways there is a simpler solution it just requires some refactoring