The Less Interesting TimesTemporality Just Gets in the Way

2013/02/22 Reading Files in C++, Quick and Easy

It’s a simple thing that can get needlessly complicated, especially if, like me, you return to C++ after a while of not using it. And then you ask yourself: “I need to read from a file but how did I use to do that? And what’s the best way to do this any way?
Well, I don’t know about best but this is the quickest and easiest way I could find.

std::ifstream t("file.txt");
std::stringstream buffer;
buffer << t.rdbuf();

And now your buffer contains the entire contents of the file and you may do with it as you please, using it like any other stream. Yes, streams allow you to output as strings two. You may even use a wstringstream if you want it to be encoded wide.
My problem came when my boss told me to dump the streams. But more on that later. Maybe.

2013/02/18 How to Compile OpenSSL for Visual Studio 2010/2012

We are using OpenSSL for secure communication because… well, anyone with an application communicating over any kind of network should use some kind of secure communication. OpenSSL is free and open source so it’s a good choice for many of the usual reasons.

OpenSSL is multiplatform and requires an on-site build. We are working with Visual Studio 2010 (now moving to 2012) and thus we need to compile it specifically for that environment. I couldn’t find any set of instructions this clear and this precise. This has been cobbled up from many sources and modified by me to fit our scenario. But, I believe this should be useful for anyone compiling OpenSSL for Visual Studio from 2003 and beyond.

Basically, there are two ways to do this: With the Visual Studio assembler or with the Netwide Assembler. I will explain them in tandem. After some (read: many) iterations on this, I’m not sure if there is a problem with either or which one is better. I ended up using the Netwide Assembler. It, however, requires another install. So my suggestion is using the VS assembler and if you have problems you can’t fix, try the Netwide Assembler.

Ingredients:

• Install the Perl compiler for windows. Put it in an easy to reach place like C:\Perl
• Download the latest OpenSSL sources. Put them in an easy to reach place like C:\openssl-<version>
• If you are using the Netwide Assembler (NASM), install that too. Put it in an easy to reach place like C:\NASM

For x86 libraries:

1. Open Visual Studio x86 Command Prompt (Should be in your Visual Studio tools subdirectory)
2. Change dir to the OpenSSL folder.
3. “perl Configure VC-WIN32 no-shared no-idea” (watch the capitals)
4. “ms\do_ms.bat” (For NASM it’s “ms\do_nasm.bat”)
5. Edit ms\nt.mak file: add “/SAFESEH” to LFLAGS (also, watch the capitals)
6. For NASM, Edit ms\nt.mak file: change line 52 to set “C:\NASM\nasm.exe” as the assembly command
7. “nmake -f ms\nt.mak”
8. This will take a few minutes but in the end you will have two important directories: inc32 and out32. In out32 you will find your two static libraries “libeay32.lib” and “ssleay32.lib”. Put them in a lib directory your linker can use. In inc32 are the headers. Copy all of them into an include directory your compiler can use.

For x64 libraries:

1. Open Visual Studio x64 Command Prompt (Should be in your Visual Studio tools subdirectory)
2. Change dir to the OpenSSL folder.
3. “perl Configure VC-WIN64A no-shared no-idea”
4. “ms\do_win64a”
5. Edit ms\nt.mak file: add “/SAFESEH” to LFLAGS
6. Edit ms\nt.mak file: change directories (lines 37-42) to be 64 and not 32
7. For NASM, Edit ms\nt.mak file: change line 52 to set “C:\NASM\nasm.exe” as the assembly command
8. “nmake -f ms\nt.mak”
9. Same as above only this time the directories are inc64 and out64 (if you changed the directories accordingly in step 6)

Thanks to everyone who helped and/or unknowingly contributed to this guide. If there are problems with it, I happily accept corrections and suggestions.