Use containers for C++ development

Table of contents

Prerequisites

Complete Containerize a C++ application.

Overview

In this section, you'll learn how to set up a development environment for your containerized application. This includes:

Configuring Compose to automatically update your running Compose services as you edit and save your code

Get the sample application

Clone the sample application to use with this guide. Open a terminal, change directory to a directory that you want to work in, and run the following command to clone the repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/Pradumnasaraf/c-plus-plus-docker.git

Automatically update services

Use Compose Watch to automatically update your running Compose services as you edit and save your code. For more details about Compose Watch, see Use Compose Watch.

Open your compose.yml file in an IDE or text editor and then add the Compose Watch instructions. The following example shows how to add Compose Watch to your compose.yml file.

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services:
  ok-api:
    image: ok-api
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: Dockerfile
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    develop:
      watch:
        - action: rebuild
          path: .

Run the following command to run your application with Compose Watch.

$ docker compose watch

Now, if you modify your ok_api.cpp you will see the changes in real time without re-building the image.

To test it out, open the ok_api.cpp file in your favorite text editor and change the message from {"Status" : "OK"} to {"Status" : "Updated"}. Save the file and refresh your browser at http://localhost:8080. You should see the updated message.

Press ctrl+c in the terminal to stop your application.

Summary

In this section, you also learned how to use Compose Watch to automatically rebuild and run your container when you update your code.

Related information:

Next steps

In the next section, you'll take a look at how to set up a CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions.