I am having trouble compiling and running my C program. What are the commands?

Question

My code is:

#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
   printf("Hello World!\n");
   exit(0);
}

I tried compiling with

gcc -o hello.c

only to be unsuccessful. I am using a Mac terminal, if that matters.

Also, it is preferable to use `return` instead of `exit`(which also needs `stdlib.h`) in `main` or remove it altogether as it is implicit in the case of `main`. — Spikatrix, Jun 26 '15 at 06:53
Wrong command. Use `gcc hello.c -o hello -Wall -Wextra -std=c11` and then open `hello.exe`. (The first two words compiles `hello.c`, `-o hello` names the .exe to `hello.exe`, `-Wall -Wextra` enables several warnings and `-std=c11` compiles the program with the latest (as of now) C standard) — Spikatrix, Jun 26 '15 at 06:56
Removed the Emacs details, since they appear completely irrelevant. — tripleee, Jun 26 '15 at 14:02

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

In gcc, option -o is used to specify a custom output filename. The immediate next argument should be the file name.

-o file

Place output in file file. This applies to whatever sort of output is being produced, whether it be an executable file, an object file, an assembler file or preprocessed C code.

A simple revised command will be

gcc -o hello hello.c

where, hello is the name of the binary.

You can check the online gcc manual for more info.

I am having trouble compiling and running my C program. What are the commands?

1 Answers1