Compiling for multiple platforms

Currently, the most surefire way to build multiple platform binaries with maven-nar-plugin is to actually do it on different platforms, rather than attempting a cross-compilation-based solution.

For example, the ImageJ project uses maven-nar-plugin to build a small native launcher for Linux, OS X and Windows, 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

To accomplish this, the project has a Jenkins CIS on a Linux server, a Windows 7 64-bit VM in VirtualBox with a Jenkins slave, and an OS X desktop Jenkins slave, each of which performs the Maven build for its respective platforms.

For further details, see:

• This answer on StackOverflow
• This ticket of the ImageJ issue tracker

Looking forward, better support for cross-compilation would be a great addition to the NAR plugin; it would make it easier to build native binaries for multiple AOLs on the same platform without resorting to Jenkins slaves. But there are many challenges (e.g., GCC changes behavior often), and it is not yet easy to do. We invite interested developers to join the discussion on the maven-nar mailing list!

For past discussion, see this old mailing list thread:

• https://groups.google.com/d/msg/maven-nar/Pa1zIIsUsVg/iLih8cP4QY8J