Basic C Questions

[Incinerator]

ok I've taken C++ and Java courses before and I know how to compile them and everything but now I'm in a C class and the prof hasn't given us any information on how to compile the files or anything. I know its basically like C++ but the g++ compiler that I have used in the past for cpp files doesn't work for the C files I've written.

In the description it says something about makefile when talking about compiling the program kind of like it replaces the compiling...what is makefile? how do I use it? what does it do?

Thanks for the info

 

[Lord of Shadows]

Well, a make file is sort of like a batch file that does the compiling for you, generally a program automatically generates this for you from a file that is autogenerated from something else and so on until you are completely confused.

If I were you I would just use gcc itself instead of any crazy make file business.
eg: gcc hw1.c hw2.c -o homework

 

[Incinerator]

hahaha thanks that helps a lot

 

[roaf85]

I agree with Lord of Shadows. Let me guess the Comp Sci. department at your university wants you to use a freeware complier sorta like Bloodshed Dev C?

 

[blackrose]

My unix/C professor from a year ago has this guide up and a bunch of example makefiles to sort of point you in the right direction. Once you get the hang of it makefiles are really nice.

Edit: Forgot the damn link lol

http://gaia.ecs.csus.edu/~busovaca/csc060/topics/C/make/Make/

 

[Lord of Shadows]

This looks useful for the whole confusing gnu build process I dont quite understand:
http://www-src.lip6.fr/homepages/Alexandre.Duret-Lutz/dl/autotools.pdf

...so if you are really bored one night you can impress your friends the next day.

 

[Incinerator]

I'll definitely be looking into those links, thanks

also, one more question.
Is there a programming environment(?), like eclipse for Java, for C or C++?

 

[Lord of Shadows]

Visual studio express is free, I think borland has a free student copy of their ide as well. As for *nix there's KDevelop and probably about 500 others. I normally just use a text editor and the compiler directly, ide's that indent for me drive me nuts.

 

[blackrose]

I'll definitely be looking into those links, thanks

also, one more question.
Is there a programming environment(?), like eclipse for Java, for C or C++?

If you're hooked on eclipse, you can download the c++ developement tools for elipse. I have yet to use them but havn't heard anything bad about them.

http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/

Also, there's the Codeblocks IDE for c/c++:: http://www.codeblocks.org/

 

[Shadow2531]

If I were you I would just use gcc itself instead of any crazy make file business.
eg: gcc hw1.c hw2.c -o homework

I agree, but maybe it would be good to add some switches to catch more errors?

Debug build (to debug with gdb.exe for example):
gcc -Wall -Wextra -ansi -pedantic -g file.c -o file

Release build:
gcc -Wall -Wextra -ansi -pedantic file.c -o file

Optimized release build:
gcc -Wall -Wextra -ansi -pedantic file.c -o file -O3 -s

Follow c99 (if allowed):
gcc -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -std=c99 file.c -o file -O3 -s

, so you can do like this:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    for (size_t i = 0; i < 10; ++i) {
        printf("&#37;u\n", i);
    }
    int x = 10;
    printf("%u\n", x);
}