C++ Plugins Guide

This guide explains how to build and develop the C++ plugins that provide core functionality for the micromissiles simulator.

Prerequisites

• A C++ compiler (GCC, Clang, or MSVC)
• Git
• Python (for Bazel)
• Bazel 8.1.1 (or Bazelisk)

Installing Bazel

This project requires Bazel version 8.1.1.

For detailed installation instructions for your platform (Windows, macOS, Linux), please refer to the official Bazel documentation.

A few important notes:

• Bazelisk is recommended as it automatically manages Bazel versions based on the .bazelversion file.
• On Windows, you will need additional components like MSYS2 and Visual Studio Build Tools.
• You can verify your installation with bazel version.

Building the Plugins

1. Change into the plugins directory.

   cd plugins

2. Build all plugins:

   bazel build //...

3. Build specific plugins:

   # Build the assignment plugin.
   bazel build //:assignment
   
   # Build the example plugin.
   bazel build //:example
   
   # Build and package all plugins into a tarball.
   bazel build //:plugins
   
   # Build and package all plugins into a tarball with optimization enabled.
   bazel build -c opt //:plugins

4. Run tests:

   bazel test //...

Project Structure

• /assignment: Contains the assignment plugin implementation.
• /example: Contains an example plugin implementation.
• /base: Common base utilities.

Output Files

After building, the compiled shared libraries can be found in the bazel-bin directory. The packaged plugins tarball will be at bazel-bin/plugins.tar.gz.

Integrating with Unity

To use these plugins with the micromissiles Unity project:

1. Build the plugins using the instructions above. Ensure that you have optimization enabled to reduce the shared library size.
2. Extract the contents of bazel-bin/plugins.tar.gz.
3. Copy the shared libraries (.dll, .dylib, or .so files) to the appropriate plugins directory in the Unity project.

Ubuntu Compatibility

Ensure that the plugin is compiled on the same Ubuntu version (e.g., 2022.04) on which the Unity project will run to maintain compability with the glibc and libstdc++ standard libraries. Unity will fail load the plugin if the plugin was compiled against a newer version of glibc or libstdc++ that is not present on the current system.

Currently, the plugin is compatible with Ubuntu 22.04 or newer.