Compiling and Running Simple Programmes with GCC

Solaris and Linux

Use your favourite editor (GNU emacs) to create a C source file, e.g., my_prog.c. Compile with

gcc -o my_prog my_prog.c

to produce my_prog (omit -o my_prog for a.out).

MS Windows (Cygwin)

The best way to use GCC on MS Windows is first to start the bash command-line shell:

set PATH=M:\Cygwin\bin;%PATH% M:\Cygwin\bin\bash --login -i

Next we need to set some mount points so that the compiler will be able to find bits and pieces it needs:

mount m:\\cygwin / mount m:\\cygwin\\bin /usr/bin mount m:\\cygwin\\lib /usr/lib

N.B. Use lowercase and "escape" the backslashes; Ignore error messages if they say "mount point does not exist".

cd /cygdrive/p mkdir my_c_src cd my_c_src

Having created a C source file and saved as, for example, P:\my_c_src\my_prog.c, compile with the command

gcc my_prog.c -o my_prog

which will produce my_prog.exe. If -o my_prog is omitted a.exe is produced.