When this thread started I fell off, I was too lost and did not have a clear motivation at the time.
Now I have motivation to continue with a bit of beginner programming in C, then I can later advance to C++. The reason to start in C is that I have found a small program that has given me a goal to try and see how far I can get, ie I am motivated
I have been reading lot in this area, have a lot of information in my head. just can't get it to come together. Let me get to the usual starting point, "hello world".
I have a directory set aside for this simple experiment.
[gert@localhost conly]$ ls -l
total 12
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gert gert 5564 Jan 22 15:51 ctest_hello*
-rw-r--r-- 1 gert gert 113 Jan 22 15:50 ctest_helloworld.c
[gert@localhost conly]$
The follwoing I took to mean I have C compiler?
[gert@localhost conly]$ gcc
gcc: no input files
[gert@localhost conly]$
Would probably have been a bit smarter trying to work out the version number with
gcc -v, whilst getting this it also looks a bit intimidating. Consulting
gcc --help reveals that the statement shows files called by
gcc[[root@localhost ~]# gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=gcc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/usr/lib/gcc/i586-mandriva-linux-gnu/4.5.2/lto-wrapper
Target: i586-mandriva-linux-gnu
Configured with: ../configure --prefix=/usr --libexecdir=/usr/lib --with-slibdir=/lib --with-bugurl=https://pclinuxos.com/ --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --enable-checking=release --enable-languages=c,c++,ada,fortran,objc,obj-c++,java --build=i586-mandriva-linux-gnu --host=i586-mandriva-linux-gnu --with-cpu=generic --with-system-zlib --enable-threads=posix --enable-shared --enable-objc-gc --enable-long-long --enable-__cxa_atexit --disable-libunwind-exceptions --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-java-awt=gtk --with-java-home=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-gcj-1.5.0.0/jre --with-ecj-jar=/usr/share/java/eclipse-ecj.jar --enable-gtk-cairo --disable-libjava-multilib --enable-ssp --disable-libssp --disable-werror --with-python-dir=/lib/python2.6/site-packages --enable-lto --enable-plugins
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.5.2 (GCC)
[root@localhost ~]# gcc -V
gcc: '-V' option must have argument
[root@localhost ~]#
Got the version
gcc version 4.5.2 (GCC) and guessing upper case V did not do better. Leave it at that.
Copied content below from
critters post in the nearby thread, as it was stated to be C code. I copied the text into kwrite and saved the file. Got a bit carried away with file names, I regret that as it is more typing

[gert@localhost conly]$ cat ctest_helloworld.c
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
printf("Hello PCLinuxOS user!"
" I like the number 9"
" for some reason.\n");
}[gert@localhost conly]$
Then compiled as below
[gert@localhost conly]$ gcc ctest_helloworld.c -o ctest_hello
[gert@localhost conly]$
The file
ctest_hello shows up, and it is not text file, so assuming it is binary but not yet .exe or something.
Question, how can I run this file? Or is that the stage where one must go looking for
makeEdit:When I started on this exercise, I got the impression that to make a running program, as simple as this, all that was needed was the line something like,
gcc ctest_helloworld.c -o ctest_hello and that my exe file was the last filename.
I took a break because my head was spinning a bit too much, coming back I got the bright idea of search the Internet for:
compiling c programs from what I pick up I am on the right track.
I guess the next step is called
debugging nothing to do with
makea.outReading through the section here I came across the
a.out where did that belong, another penny dropped
[gert@localhost conly]$ gcc ctest_helloworld.c #this produces the a.out file haaah this is where it comes from
[gert@localhost conly]$
Red portion above is probably the simplest form of a compile statement, the default file output is
a.outCould not help trying out the use of
# on the command line to annotate what is presently going on. The command line interpreter ignores what comes after the #.
In the mean time I remembered something
old-polack mentioned some time ago when apparently I must have been trying to run an exe file, you use
./ in front of the file to indicate
run from present position, even though you are already in the directory, ie my present position already is correct, that one beats me.

Well I will suggest the for a C program the "Hello World" is changed a bit, something like

[gert@localhost conly]$ ./a.out
Hello PCLinuxOS user! when you have the result of the gcc xxxx.c to use ./<exefile_name> to start the program and by the way to use ctl-C to bail out
[gert@localhost conly]$
gcc and option -oThis option is used to specify a none default output file such as in my compile run
gcc ctest_helloworld.c -o ctest_hello
the output file is
ctest_helloWell this was my warm up to a problem, which I now have to and find again. This other program have decided to play hide and seek. I will take a brake though as last time that gave beneficial result.