Sunday, May 11, 2014

LibXML2 & 64 bit compilation on Windows

We recently tried to change our platform from 32bit to 64bit.

Here are some feedbacks:
- We were based on libxml2, which relies on libiconv and zlib. Unfortunately, the official libxml website (ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml2/) doesn't provide 64bit precompiled binaries for Windows.

- We found some files on the web https://github.com/dlonie/OpenBabel-BFGS/tree/master/windows-vc2008/libs/x64 that didn't work.

- We didn't have the patience to recompile everything from scratch - it will add too much complexity to our dev env.

The solution we choose:
TinyXML2 ! 
- Because it is just 2 files : one .h / one .cpp
- Because you can compile it in 32/64 bit
- Because it is fast and easy to use

Source : http://www.grinninglizard.com/tinyxml2/

What's new in TinyXML2 compared to TinyXML ?
  1. Many fewer memory allocation (1/10th to 1/100th), uses less memory (about 40% of TinyXML-1), and faster (~5x on read)
  2. No STL requirement
  3. More modern C++, including a proper namespace
  4. Proper and useful handling of whitespace

Hello, world.

Just a simple announcement : From now, all posts will be written in English.