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Configuring your compiler ​

Picking a Compiler ​

Depending on what platform(s) you want to target for your Minecraft: Bedrock Edition mod, you'll have to use the correct compiler and standard template library (STL) for complete ABI compatibility for both language features and library features.

The following table serves as a rough guide for which compiler you'll want to use for a given Bedrock platform. It's not exact, nor complete (for now):

PlatformCompilerSTL
WindowsMSVCMicrosoft STL
AndroidGCClibstdc++
OSX/iOSClanglibc++

Generally, it should be fine to use the latest releases of both the compiler and STL provided by the table. If any notable incompatibilities are found in the future, the table will be updated accordingly.

IMPORTANT

If you are targeting Windows, the correct runtime library must be configured, continue reading.

Setting the Runtime Library ​

When targeting Windows, STL container ABI and C Runtime function compatibility are affected by the runtime library being used (either Release or Debug). Since official Minecraft: Bedrock Edition releases are compiled with the Release mode libraries, your mod must use the Release mode libraries, even when compiling a debug build.

CMake ​

CMake 3.15 introduced the MSVC_RUNTIME_LIBRARY property. There are 2 relevant values:

  1. MultiThreaded - Statically linked, release mode runtime library
  2. MultiThreadedDLL - Dynamically linked, release mode runtime library

Opting for the dynamically linked runtime library will require users of your mod to have the associated Visual C++ Redistributable downloaded, in exchange for a smaller binary size. The inverse is true of the statically linked runtime library.

It is often faster to compile against the dynamically linked runtime library, so it's worth considering dynamic linkage for debug builds and static linkage for release builds. A CMake generator expression can facilitate this behavior:

CMake
set_property(TARGET MyTarget PROPERTY
    # Statically link in release mode and dynamically link in debug mode
    MSVC_RUNTIME_LIBRARY "MultiThreaded$<$<CONFIG:Debug>:DLL>")

Or if you only want to use one runtime library for all build types:

CMake
set_property(TARGET MyTarget PROPERTY
    MSVC_RUNTIME_LIBRARY "MultiThreaded")
CMake
set_property(TARGET MyTarget PROPERTY
    MSVC_RUNTIME_LIBRARY "MultiThreadedDLL")