Member Avatar for winrawr

I was just curious, besides the APIs and DLLs, etc, what is the difference between C++ compiled in windows, and C++ compiled in linux? Is it just the OS interrupts used in the machine code or what?

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Following and , the short answer is: most numeric and algorithmic machine instructions look the same for the same CPU, but the surrounding rules differ. The important differences are the ABI (calling conventions, symbol/name mangling, object layout and unwind tables), the on-disk object/executable format, the C and C++ runtime implementations, and how user code reaches the kernel (library wrappers vs raw syscalls). Those differences are why a Linux-built binary will not run on Windows and vice versa.

ABI and runtime details matter in practice. Calling convention and structure layout control how parameters and return values are passed. Name mangling and exception/unwind schemes determine whether C++ object files link together. The standard library implementation (libstdc++, libc, MSVCRT, MSVC STL) and thread APIs (pthreads vs Win32 threads) change behavior and available features. Compilers on the same platform (for example, GCC and clang on Linux) usually share an ABI; across OS/toolchains they rarely do.

Practical steps to port or interoperate:

  • Isolate OS-specific code behind small interfaces.
  • Export C-style functions (extern "C") for binary boundaries to avoid C++ name-mangling mismatch.
  • Use portable libraries (Boost, POCO) or standard C++ features where possible.
  • For cross-building, use toolchains like MinGW-w64 or a cross-compiler, or build natively on the target.
  • When a binary problem appears, inspect symbols and dependencies (readelf/objdump on Unix, dumpbin on Windows) and check for ABI mismatches or missing runtimes.

For authoritative details on formats and ABI rules, see the official platform specs:

A final note: modern compilers usually call a C runtime wrapper which then performs the syscall; raw software interrupts like int 0x80 are legacy—focus on the ABI and runtime differences rather than expecting lots of direct interrupt instructions in generated code.

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Member Avatar for winrawr

so runtime libraries, machine code interrupts and executable file format?
Like header-bits-sort of thing?
hmm... can you link me to somewhere that explains the file formats?
if not...I'll google it...just...it's like 2:30 am right now.

Member Avatar for jbennet

Add executable file formats to the list as well.

yep, if i remembe rrightly, one uses a.out and one uses ELF or something

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

Here is a list of file formats -- there might be more, I don't know. I didn't know a.out was a file format -- just thought it was a filename.

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