Re: Running apps compiled for newer OS X versions on older versions (rant)
Re: Running apps compiled for newer OS X versions on older versions (rant)
- Subject: Re: Running apps compiled for newer OS X versions on older versions (rant)
- From: Alastair Houghton <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2016 14:06:41 +0100
On 5 Sep 2016, at 13:48, Mark Allan <email@hidden> wrote:
>
> It's probably also worth noting that you *can* compile for 10.6 using the tools on 10.11 by adjusting the deployment target.
This is *usually* but not always true. There are sometimes backwards compatibility problems that require you to use older build tools or SDKs. (The most annoying case is if you need a KEXT for some reason, in which case you definitely can’t build KEXTs compatible with 10.6 using the 10.11 SDK; in fact, you can’t even build KEXTs compatible with *10.10* with the 10.11 SDK, which is a PITA because Xcode 7 dropped the 10.10 SDK and Xcode 6 won’t even run on 10.11...)
Another thing to watch out for is that some APIs change behaviour based on the system on which your code was built; this happens because of backwards compatibility measures built in to OS X itself, but can be a problem if you take older code and just rebuild it with a newer Xcode without going through checking everything. Often the changes are subtle and won’t matter too much, but you can’t assume that will always be the case - e.g. I remember one instance where a load of percentages magically multiplied themselves by 100 because of changes in the way NSNumberFormatter works.
So, yes, this is your first point of call, but you will need to go and check that your code genuinely does work on the system you’re targeting because occasionally things are not quite as simple as they seem.
Kind regards,
Alastair.
--
http://alastairs-place.net
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