C/C++ cross-development environment

Hello everyone,


I read some beginner materials for C/C++ cross-development environment, which consists a host machine and a target machine. The host machine can produce binary executable code for the target machine, which has a different hardware architecture compared with the host machine. For example, the host machine can be x86 CPU, but the target machine can be ARM CPU.

How mysterious it is! I am wondering what mysterious things do the host machine have in order to produce the binary code for a different hardware architecture machine. I think the host machine should contain,

- compiler/linker which works on host system but produce binary output for target system;
- .h header files for target system;
- dynamic library for target system, like .DLL for Windows and .so for Linux;
- shared library for target system, like .lib for Windows and .a for Linux.

Not sure whether my guess is correct. Any comments?


thanks in advance,
George

Pretty much yes.

Biggest problem with cross-platform development is testing. You either need a very good emulator on the development machine, or do all your testing on the target machine (very time-consuming).