Combine two C program files in VScode, macOS - c

I got two C program files, a basic code
main.c and function.c
the function.c file contains the function which I need to call in main.c file
i've tried merging files using -o
the error appears to be : liker not found, although all the libraries and stuff are perfectly present in my system.
I'am facing this problem in vsCode in macOS.

Let's begin with taking an example in the attachment there are two pictures if you see the picture which has code for one.c there I have used a line
#include "two.c"
Just to tell the compiler that I want to see every single definition in two. c
In file one.c I have called a function named print which is defined in two. c
One thing that can be noticed and is a really important observation is that in two.c, the file from where definitions needed to be called doesn't have a main function. Can you guess why? The reason is simply because when you click on one.c your system will call the main function located in one.c. Upon seeing two main functions on the second file it gets confused and throws error, and just think why you even need the main function in two.c. There is no need because we use the main function just to perform certain actions and in two.c you really don't need to perform any action but you only need a function to be exported on another file.
In your case, you need to eliminate the main function from the function .c file and in main .c just include the path of your function .c

Related

Getting undefined reference to `hmac_sha1' in C

This is my current workspace. I have the Headers in the same folder with the otp.c but whenever I compile and run it it returns an error telling me that hmac-sha1 is undefined. Hope someone can help me.
Short Background
Including a header file enables you to compile the source file into an object file by declaring the function.
However, to get an executable, you need to link the object files together whereby one function used in one object file may be defined (i.e. implemented) in another object file. When listing the objects for the linker, they must be arranged in order of dependency, e.g if a depends on b the a should appear before b on the command line (in case of circular dependencies please find a post on it).
Solution
The way you run gcc makes it first compile the sources into object files and link them. otp.c requires the function hmac_sha1 is probably in hmac-sha1.c (I am guessing from the header file name) and so you should run:
gcc otp.c hmac-sha1.c -o otp
Note that otp.c depends on hmac-sha1.c hence the order.

C: linking a different C file in a Driver program?

Well,I am making a program that can Implement every form of Data structure i.e,linked list,queue,stack. And created separate file for each ,Now I want to use each of the separate file in a single driver program.
I've linked the file as:
#include"filename.c"
But an error shows up no such file or directory. And yeah, any other thing which i need to implement to use the functions of included files in the driver program .
You don't include .c files, rather .h files.
Assuming you have folder containing your main.c file and a datastructs.c file, create a datastructs.h file that contains all the function declarations.
datastructs.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include "datastructs.h"
void hello() {
printf("hello, world!\n");
}
datastructs.h
void hello();
Now, in the main.c - the C file containing the main function - include the datastructs.h file and invoke all the functions you want:
#include "datastructs.h"
void main() {
hello();
}
Make sure to compile every source you're using, it'll make sure to link everything correctly:
gcc datastructs.c main.c -o main
This is a very basic approach, there are more out there - which probably are even better than this - but it will get the job done.
Make sure to check out how Makefile and make works, this way you can deal with this kind of tasks better.

Including source files in C files

I am very new to C, so I apologize for this newby question.
I would like to use this source code in my project: http://base64.sourceforge.net/b64.c.
So, I include it in my test file:
#include <stdio.h>
#include "b64.c"
int main()
{
return 0;
}
However, main() is defined in b64.c as well, so upon compiling, I get:
test.c:4:5: error: redefinition of ‘main’
b64.c:495:5: note: previous definition of ‘main’ was here
test.c: In function ‘main’:
test.c:5:1: error: number of arguments doesn’t match prototype
b64.c:495:5: error: prototype declaration
What is the correct usage of this source file, or any? How do we correctly use it, or use functions defined in that file?
Edit: I understand that the problem is due to the duplicate definitions of main. I know there can only be one. My question is rather, won't every meaningful project need it's main method? Then why is there a main method defined in b64.c? Are we just supposed to delete this method from the source code? It seems odd that the source code doesn't just come ready to be included and used.
It is never a good idea to #include a C source file into your code. You can either copy the code from the other C source file into your code, or include the needed prototypes in your code and make a call to the functions, linking those after compiling them separately.
you should use one of the two main functions.
If you want a new main, write your main method in your file and remove it from the 'b64.c' file, if you want to use it from the 'b64.c' file remove your (empty) main.
If main is defined in b64.c either you cannot simply redefine it in your main source file.
What do you want is to use several functions from b64.c in your program. Delete the main function from it and create a header file where you protoype all of the functions in b64.c. After that, include this header file in your main program. Have a look at this short Wikipedia entry. It should give you an overview of the topic.
Besides this: It seems that you aren't very familar with C. Try out some tutorials and go on reading about C.
First of all, you must redeclare the .c file as a .h, and then you have to go through the source code and rename any duplicate methods or global variable names. The main method is the starting point of a program so there can only be one.
(Usualy you dont include .c files, only .h)
if you want the functions inside the "b64.c" you should delete the main function from "b54.c"!
A C application needs one main() function. Your file b64.c looks like a self-sufficient C program so you don't need your test.c. Just compile and run b64.c.
When you are including that source file you are getting 2 main() declaration which is incorrect. So you have redefined "main" in this case.
Including .c into another .c file doesn't make sense. C files compile to .obj files, which are linked by the linker into the executable code , so there is no need to include one .C file into another. Instead, you can make a .h file that lists the functions and include that .h file

C - How are c source files incuded without an include statement

I've taken the plunge and am learning C. It's been a pretty good but manageable learning curve coming from a scripting (php, perl) background with only a little bit of C#.
I've used the web-site "Learn C The Hard Way" and am so far grasping reasonably well (I think) but I can't understand this part of one of the exercises:
http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/ex19.html
He created four source files - object.h, object.c, ex19.h, ex19.c
But I don't understand how the object.c file is included.
The main function is located in ex19.c, and it has the line
#include "ex19.h"
File ex19.h has the line
#include "object.h"
But object.h makes no reference to including object.c. Interestingly object.c contains the line
#include "object.h"
Is there some sort of implied include where if you include the header file, it will automatically include the c source code of the same name?
This is the job of a separate program called the linker. In C, source files need access to the header files of other C source files so that they can see information about what functions, types, and variables are defined by that second C file that the first file might want to use. Each C file is then compiled independently of the rest. The output of the compiler is an object file.
To build a final program, a second program called the linker comes in and combines all the object files together into the overall executable. This program is tasked with taking the implementations of all the different C files and cross-referencing them against one another so that each time one C file references a function or variable in a different C file, that reference can actually be made to the appropriate object.
This is why you don't need to include .c files. Once a source file has a header, it knows enough about the other file in order to use the functions it provides for the compiler to verify that it's using them correctly. The linker then handles of the job of actually making the cross-references. You can think of the compiler as a program that checks to see that if the functions are defined, then the program would work. The linker then actually checks to make sure that those functions are defined in the first place and sets up the appropriate links in the executable.
Hope this helps!
Object.c is not included.
It's compiled as it's own unit and it includes object.h
See the make file:
CFLAGS=-Wall -g
all: ex19
ex19: object.o
clean:
rm -f ex19
ex19: object.o tells you that object.o must be created before ex19 can be built, and this is picked up by default from make file as an object.c exists.
So this make file says
to build all you need ex19, to get ex19 you need object.o, and the to create object.o the makefile picks up object.o built from the object.c
From the page you reference:
make can't see anything in the file for object.o, but it does see an
object.c file, and it knows how to turn a .c into a .o, so it does
that.
The entire logic lies in the makefile and an intelligent compiler. The final binary created has an object file named as object.o which will ideally contain all the function definitions defined in object.h file. It is the linker which links the functions declared in .h file with the definition which are available in .o file.

Include c file in another

I want to include a .c file in another. Is it possible right? It works well if I include a header file in a .c file, but doesn't work as well if I include a .c file in another .c file.
I am using Visual Studio and I get the following error:
main.obj : error LNK2005: _sayHello already defined in sayHello.obj
/* main.c */
#include "sayHello.c"
int main()
{
return 0;
}
/* sayHello.c */
#include <stdio.h>
void sayHello()
{
printf("Hello World");
}
I don't know what this error could mean. Time to ask more advanced C coders. :)
I want to include a .c file in another.
No you don't. You really, really don't. Don't take any steps down this path; it only ends in pain and misery. This is bad practice even for trivial programs such as your example, much less for programs of any real complexity. A trivial, one-line change in one file will require you to rebuild both that file and anything that includes it, which is a waste of time. You lose the ability to control access to data and functions; everything in the included .c file is visible to the including file, even functions and file scope variables declared static. If you wind up including a .c file that includes another .c file that includes another .c file und so weiter, you could possibly wind up with a translation unit too large for the compiler to handle.
Separate compilation and linking is an unequivocal Good Thing. The only files you should include in your .c files are header files that describe an interface (type definitions, function prototype declarations, macro defintions, external declarations), not an implementation.
It works, but you need to be careful with how you build the program. Also, as folks have pointed out in comments, it's generally considered a bad idea. It's unexpected, and it creates problems like these. There are few benetfits, especially for what seems like a trivial program. You should probably re-think this approach, altogether.
After doing something like this, you should only compile main.c, and not attempt to link it with the result of compiling sayHello.c, which you seem to be doing.
You might need to tell Visual Studio to exclude the latter file from the build.
Yes, any '.c' file can be included into another program.
As one include '.h' file like 'stdio.h' in the program.
After that we can call those function written into this external file.
test.c::
#include<stdio.h>
#include<conio.h>
void xprint()
{
printf("Hello World!");
}
main.c::
#include "test.c"
void main()
{
xprint();
getch();
}
Output:: Hello World!
This is a linker error. After compiling all your .c files to .obj files (done by the compiler) the linker "merges" them together to make your dll/exe. The linker has found that two objects declare the same function (which is obviously not allowed). In this case you would want the linker to only process main.obj and not sayhello.obj as well (as its code is already included in main.obj).
This is because in main.obj you will ALSO have the sayHello() function due to the include!
sayHello.h
#include <stdio.h>
void sayHello(void);
main.c
#include "sayHello.h"
int main()
{
sayHello();
return 0;
}
You probably defined two times this function
void sayHello()
{
printf("Hello World");
}
one in your current file and one in sayhello.c
You must remove one definition.
The problem seems to be that sayHello.c got compiled into an object file called sayHello.obj, and main.c (also including all the source text from sayHello.c), got compiled into main.obj, and so both .obj files got a copy of all the external symbols (like non-static function definitions) from sayHello.c.
Then all the object files were supposed to get "linked" together to produce the final executable program file, but the linking breaks when any external symbols appear more than once.
If you find yourself in this situation, you need to stop linking sayHello.obj to main.obj (and then you might not want to compile sayHello.c by itself into its own object file at all).
If you manually control every step of the build (like you might when using the CLI of your compiler), this is often just a matter of excluding that object file from the invocation of the linker or compiler.
Since you are using Visual Studio, it's probably making a bunch of assumptions for you, like "every .c file should be compiled into its own object file, and all those object files should be linked together", and you have to find a way to circumvent or disable this assumption for sayHello.c.
One easy and somewhat idiomatic solution might be to rename sayHello.c into sayHello.c.inc.
//THIS IS THE MAIN FILE//
#include "test.c"
int main()
{
multi(10);
}
//THIS IS THE TEST FILE//
#include<stdio.h>
void multi(int a)
{
printf("%d",a*2);
}
POINTS TO BE NOTED:
Here you need to run the program which contains "main()" function.
You can avoid the "stdio.h" header file in main function. Because, you are including the file which already contains the "stdio.h" header file.
You have to call the function from the "main" file.
The including file should be "file_name.c" not "file_name.h". Because usually we use .h extension for the header file. Since we are including another program file and not the header file, we have to use .c. Otherwise it will give you Fatal Error and the Compilation gets terminated.

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