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C How To Program 8e Before You Begin

To compile and run C programs on different platforms, developers must first install the appropriate compiler software. On Windows, this involves downloading Visual Studio Community edition. The document then provides step-by-step instructions for creating and running a new C project within Visual Studio. For Linux, it describes using the GCC compiler from the command line terminal. And for MacOS, it outlines how to set up and run a new C project within the Xcode integrated development environment.

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293 views3 pages

C How To Program 8e Before You Begin

To compile and run C programs on different platforms, developers must first install the appropriate compiler software. On Windows, this involves downloading Visual Studio Community edition. The document then provides step-by-step instructions for creating and running a new C project within Visual Studio. For Linux, it describes using the GCC compiler from the command line terminal. And for MacOS, it outlines how to set up and run a new C project within the Xcode integrated development environment.

Uploaded by

Samy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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C How to Program, Before You Begin

Software
Download and install a compiler for your platform.

• If you’re on Linux, GCC is most likely already installed.


• If you’re on a Mac, you can use Apple’s free Xcode IDE, which you can get from the Mac App
Store.
• If you’re on Windows, you can use Microsoft’s Visual Studio Community edition from
http://microsoft.com/express.

Creating a Project in Visual Studio


As for the Before You Begin, on Windows all you need to do is install Visual Studio Community. The C++
compiler is capable of compiling almost every program in C How to Program—there are a couple of
recent C features that are not supported and we note those in the book.

To compile a C program:
1. Open Visual Studio.
2. Select File > New > Project…
3. In the left side of the New Project dialog, expand Templates, then select Visual C++.
4. In the center of the dialog, select Win32 Console Application.
5. At the bottom of the dialog, specify a name and location for your project, then click OK

In the Win32 Application Wizard dialog:
1. Click Next>
2. Uncheck both Precompiled header and Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) checks
3. Check Empty Project
4. Click Finish.

Next, add a source code file to the Source Files folder in the Solution Explorer at the right side of Visual
Studio—if this window is not showing, select View > Solution Explorer.

• If you want to run an existing program from our examples, you can simply drag its files from
Windows Explorer (Windows 7) or File Explorer (Windows 8 and 10) onto the Source Files folder
in the Solution Explorer. Once you’ve done this, you can type Ctrl + F5 to compile and run the
program.
• If you want to create a program from scratch—which I recommend even for our programs when
learning—right click the Source Files folder in the Solution Explorer then select Add > New
Item…. In the dialog, select C++ file, BUT name the file with the extension “.c” not “.cpp”—this is
how Visual Studio knows to compile the program as C rather than C++.


Compiling/Running Using GNU C++ on Linux
The prompt in the shell on our system uses the tilde (~) character to represent the home directory, and
each prompt ends with the dollar sign ($) character. The prompt will vary among Linux systems. We
assume here that you’ve already created or already have a .c file (such as one of our examples) that’s
ready to be compiled.

Step 1: Locating the Application


From a Linux shell, use the command cd to change to the directory containing the C file you want to
compile. For this discussion we’ll call the file GuessNumber.c and assume the examples folder is in your
user account’s folder. We’ll also assume that GuessNumber.c is in the examples subfolder ch01.

In the shell window, type
cd examples/ch01
then press Enter. You can see the contents of the directory by typing ls and pressing Enter.

Step 2: Compiling the Application
Before running the application, you must first compile it by typing
gcc -std=c11 GuessNumber.c -o GuessNumber
This command compiles the application for C11 and produces an executable file called GuessNumber.
For other programs you’d replace GuessNumber with the appropriate name. If the program contains
multiple .c files and only that program is in the directory, you can use *.c to indicate that all .c files in the
directory should be compiled.

Step 3: Running the Application
To run the executable file GuessNumber, type
./GuessNumber
at the next prompt, then press Enter. The ./ tells Linux to run from the current directory and is required
to indicate that GuessNumber is an executable file.


Creating a Project in Xcode on MacOS

Step 1: Launching Xcode
Open a Finder window, select Applications and double click the Xcode icon. If this is your first time
running Xcode, the Welcome to Xcode window will appear. Close this window for now—you can access
it any time by selecting Window > Welcome to Xcode.

Step 2: Creating a Project
1. Select File > New > Project….
2. In the OS X (or MacOS) subcategory Application, select Command Line Tool and click Next.
3. Provide a name for your project in the Product Name field.
4. Ensure that the selected Language is C and click Next.
6. Specify where you want to store your project, then click Create.

By default, Xcode creates a main.cpp source-code file containing a simple program that displays "Hello,
World!". The window is divided into four main areas below the toolbar: the Navigator area (left), Editor
area (center) and Utilities area (right) are displayed initially. We’ll explain momentarily how to display
the Debug area (bottom) in which you’ll run and interact with the program.

Step 3: The main.c File
You can use main.c as the file in which to type a new program, or you can delete that file and add an
existing .c file to the project. To type a new program, double click main.c to open it.

To add a different file, select main.c and delete it, then right click the folder that contained main.c and
select Add Files to “folder name”…. You can then navigate to where the existing file(s) is(are) stored and
select them to add them to the project. You can also simply drag files from the Finder into the folder.

Step 4: Compiling and Running the Project
To compile and run the project so you can test-drive the application, simply click the run button (looks
like a right facing triangular Play button) at the left side of Xcode’s toolbar. If the program compiles
correctly, Xcode opens the Debug area (at the bottom of the Editor area) and executes the program in
the right half of the Debug area. If the program is interactive, you can click in that window and type any
required data.

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