This page is a simple introduction to using the command line C/C++ programming environment on the CIS department systems. There are various graphical IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) for many platforms, e.g., Eclipse, XCode for Mac, Visual C++ for PCs. However, for the purposes of this class, editing source code with your favorite editor and compiling with the command line tools will be sufficient.

Compiling from the command line:

• Compile a C source:

  
  % cc -o outputFileName sourceFileName
  

  or

  
  % gcc -o outputFileName sourceFileName
  

  where outputFileName is the name of the binary executable to be produced and sourceFileName is the name of the file containing the source code. Conventionally, C source files are named with the suffix .c.

• Compile a C++ source:

  
  % CC -o outputFileName sourceFileName
  

  or

  
  % g++ -o outputFileName sourceFileName
  

  C++ source files are often named with suffixes .c, or .C, or .cc, or .cpp.

• Run:

  
  % outputFileName
  

  or

  
  % ./outputFileName
  

  That is, simply typing the name of the output file created will execute it. If your PATH does not include the current directory, then you can explicitly execute using the path name as shown in the second example.

Notes:

• cc is the Solaris c compiler.

• CC (notice capitals) is the Solaris C++ compiler.

• Solaris C/C++ documentation can be found on the department network by browsing to /local/apps/Lang/SUNWspro/docs/index.html.

• gcc is the GNU c compiler.

• g++ is the GNU C++ compiler.

• Department documentation - find man pages for gcc, printf, etc.

• You may use either the Solaris or GNU compiler, but some code may work on one but not on the other. Notice that cc and gcc only compile C source and do not recognize the keyword class or the other extensions of C++ over C.

• C/C++ Online Reference - appears to be a convenient reference for standard C++ classes, and standard C functions
  cplusplus.com reference is another online reference for the C++ iostream library

• If you leave the "-o outputFileName" option off, the compiler will create an executable with the default name "a.out". (Under Windows, the default name is "a.exe".)

• C/C++ programs generally have the following form:

  int main(int argc, char *argv[])
  {
        ...
  }
  

  It is expected that main returns 0 on successful termination or some non zero error code on unsuccessful termination. You can also declare main as void, although you may get a warning.

  Command-line arguments are given in a similar way as in Java, but C/C++ use a pointer to a string of characters instead of a String object type. There is no such thing as a length field in arrays in C/C++, hence the need for passing the array length as argc. The command line arguments include the executable command name as argv[0]. You may also leave off the arguments for main if you have no need for command line argument values. (Java requires the formal argument even if you don't use it.)

• If you want to work on a PC, Cygwin provides a free port of the GNU C/C++ compiler to Windows as well as a fairly complete set of Unix tools and shells so that you can have a Unix like command line environment on a PC.