| Chapter 14. The most used options of the gcc compiler | ||
|---|---|---|
 | Part II. Tools |  |
| Chapter 14. The most used options of the gcc compiler | ||
|---|---|---|
| | Part II. Tools | |
Table of Contents
The GNU C compiler gcc is the application that given a set of files with C code, generates an executable program. As with the rest of applications, it can be invoked from the command interpreter. With the option --version the compiler only shows information about its version. Try the following command in the terminal:
$ gcc --version
As all other commands, gcc also has its manual page where its functionality and the options to modify its behavior are explained. To see the complexity of this tool take a look to this page with the command:
$ man gcc
Create a folder in your user account with name
Lab2 and download in it the file main_en.c. Open the file with the editor
and check that it contains the main function where execution
will start, and an auxiliary function. Next, execute the command to
transform this file into a program:
$ gcc main_en.cCheck that in the current directory a file with name
a.out has been created. The compiler is designed such
that if no name is specified for the resulting program, by default it chooses
a.out. This file can be executed as any other command,
with the change that the prefix “./” needs to be added because
the program is a user folder instead of those where the system searches for
programs. Therefore, the command is:
$ ./a.out
The first option we are going to use is precisely that to
choose the name of the executable produced by the compiler. This option is
-o followed by (separated by a space) the file name that
we want to create. For example, if we want to call the program
main_en, the command to execute is:
$ gcc -o main_en main_en.cAfter executing this second command check that there are now two executable files in the current directory. Delete the one that is no longer needed.
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| 13.10.2. Directory management and information retrival |  | 14.2. Showing all the warnings |