Is it possible to program iPhone in C++

Question

I'm all for language diversity, but Objective C is insane. So I'm curious: is it possible to code iPhone apps with C++ while using the Cocoa API, etc?

Answer 1

Short answer, yes, sort of. You can use Objective-C++, which you can read about at Apple Developer Connection.

If you know C++ already, learning Objective-C would be pretty simple, if you decided to give that a try. More info on that topic is at the ADC as well.

Answer 2

Although Objective-C does indeed appear to be "insane" initially, I encourage you to stick with it. Once you have an "a-ha" moment, suddenly it all starts to make sense. For me it took about 2 weeks of focused Objective-C concentration to really understand the Cocoa frameworks, the language, and how it all fits together. But once I really "got" it, it was very very exciting.

It sounds cliché, but it's true. Stick it out.

Of course, if you're bringing in C++ libraries or existing C++ code, you can use those modules with Objective-C/Objective-C++.

Answer 3

I use Objective-C to slap the UI together.
But the hard guts of the code is still written in C++.

That is the main purpose of Objective-C the UI interface and handling the events.
And it works great for that purpose.

I still like C++ as the backend for the code though (but that's mainly becuase I like C++) you could quite easily use Objective-C for the backend of the application as well.

Answer 4

First off, saying Objective-C is "insane" is humorous- I have the Bjarne Stroustrup C++ book sitting by my side which clocks in at 1020 pages. Apple's PDF on Objective-C is 141.

If you want to use UIKit it will be very, very difficult for you to do anything in C++. Any serious iPhone app that conforms to Apple's UI will need it's UI portions to be written in Objective-C. Only if you're writing an OpenGL game can you stick almost entirely to C/C++.

Answer 5

Having some experience of this, you can indeed use C++ code for your "core" code, but you have to use objective-C for anything iPhone specific.

Don't try to force Objective-C to act like C++. At first it will seem to you this is possible, but the resulting code really won't work well with Cocoa, and you will get very confused as to what is going on. Take the time to learn properly, without any C++ around, how to build GUIs and iPhone applications, then link in your C++ base.

Answer 6

I'm not sure about C++, but you can definitely code iPhone applications in C#, using a product called MonoTouch.

You can see this post for detailed discussion on MonoTouch Vs Obj-C: How to decide between MonoTouch and Objective-C?

Answer 7

You have to use Objective C to interface with the Cocoa API, so there is no choice. Of course, you can use as much C++ as you like behind the scenes (Objective C++ makes this easy).

It is an insane language indeed, but it's also... kind of fun to use once you're a bit used to it. :-)

Answer 8

I'm in the process of porting a computation-intensive Android app written in Java to iOS6. I'm doing this by porting the non-UI parts from Java to C++, writing the (minimal) UI parts in Obj-C, and wrapping the former in a (small) C interface using the standard C/C++ technique, so that it can be accessed from Obj-C, which is after all a superset of C.

This has been effective so far, and I haven't encountered any gotchas. It seems to be a legitimate approach, since Xcode lets you create C++ classes as well as Obj-C classes, and some of the official sample code does things this way. I haven't had to go outside any officially supported interfaces to do this.

There wouldn't seem to be much to gain from writing my remaining UI code in C++ even if it were possible, in view of the help given to you by the interface builder in Xcode, so my answer would be that you can use C++ for almost all your app, or as much of it as you find appropriate/convenient.

Answer 9

Yes but Thinking that you can program every kind of program in a single language is a flawed idea unless you are writing very simple programs. Objective C is for Cocoa as C# is for .NET, Use the right tool for right job, Trying to make C++ interact to Cocoa via writing bridging code and trying to make C++ code behave according to Cocoa requirements is not a good idea neither expecting C++ performance from Objective C is. You should try to layout design and architecture of app keeping in view existing skills and determine which part should be written in which language then build accordingly.

Answer 10

It may be a bit offtopic, but anyway. You can program c++ right on iOS devices. Check out CppCode ios app - http://cppcode.info. I believe it helps to learn c and c++ and objective-c later.

Answer 11

I'm currently writing an Objective-C++ framework called Objective-X, wich makes PURE C++ iPHONE PROGRAMMING possible. You can do like this:

#import "ObjectiveX.h"

void GUIApplicationMain() {    
    GUIAlert Alert;
    GUILabel Label;
    GUIScreen MainScreen;

    Alert.set_text(@"Just a lovely alert box!");
    Alert.set_title(@"Hello!");
    Alert.set_button(@"Okay");
    Alert.show();

    Label.set_text(@"Ciao!");
    Label.set_position(100, 200, 120, 40);

    MainScreen.init();
    MainScreen.addGUIControl(Label.init());    
}

and compile it using GCC's appropriate commandline options. I've already compiled this helloworld app&it w0rkX0rz like a charm. ;-) It'll available soon on GoogleCode. Search for Objective-X or visit http://infotronix.orgfree.com/objectivex approx. a week later!

Updated (but apparently inactive) URL: http://code.google.com/p/objectivex/