The C Compiler

The C Compiler

The source code written in source file is the human readable source for your program. It needs to be "compiled" into machine language so that your CPU can actually execute the program as per the instructions given. The compiler compiles the source codes into final executable programs. The most frequently used and free available compiler is the GNU C/C++ compiler, otherwise you can have compilers either from HP or Solaris if you have the respective operating systems. The following section explains how to install GNU C/C++ compiler on various OS. m We keep mentioning C/C++ together because GNU gcc compiler works for both C and C++ programming languages.

Quick Start with C

programming language is perhaps the most popular programming language. C was created in 1972 by

Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Labs in USA as a part of UNIX operating system. C was also used to

develop some parts of this operating system. From that time C programming language has been the

de facto programming language when fast programs are needed or the software needs to interact

with the hardware in some way. Most of the operating systems like Linux, Windows™, and Mac™ are either

developed in C language or use this language for most parts of the operating system and the tools coming

with it.

This course is a quick course on C Programming language. In our first lesson we will first write our first

C program. We will then learn about printing to screen, variables and functions. We assume that you are

familiar with at least one of the popular operating system