I'm trying to compile my C code but I need to tell the GCC compiler where two file are.
The two files are located here
/usr/local/ssl/include/
/usr/local/ssl/lib/
I want to add this to my gcc -o file file.c so that my program can work.
In gcc, the -I option is used for adding a directory to the set of directories to search for header files, and the -L option is used for adding a directory to the set of directories to search for libraries. Since you're not explicitly linking in any libraries, you shouldn't need the -L option in this case.
gcc -I/usr/local/ssl/include -o file file.c
If you were linking in libraries, something like the following format should work, assuming that file.c calls a function in libmyLib.a:
gcc -I/usr/local/ssl/include -o file file.c -L/path/to/my/library -lmyLib
See this question for more details regarding library linking order.
Related
Currently I have two files
main.c
libxxx.a
main.c references some functions defined in the source code of a relocatable object file in libxxx.a.
Now the following command successfully compiles main.c and links it to libxxx.a:
gcc -o prog main.c libxxx.a
but if I put libxxx.a into one of the search paths of ld, the same directory with libc.a,
gcc -o prog main.c
just doesn't work. It seems that ld fails to find this archive file when searching in the directory. Can someone tell me why this happens?
but if I put libxxx.a into one of the search paths of lb linker, the same directory with libc.a,
gcc -o prog main.c
just doesn't work.
That is expected and desired: you wouldn't want every program you write to link against every library that is installed in the system search path. What you want is:
gcc -o prog main.c -lxxx
That is: copying the library into /usr/lib allows the linker to find it without any extra search arguments, but you still must tell the linker that you want to link against libxxx.
I found a useful library on github for my project, after building this later I tried to use some predefined function on it. I couldn't compile my project because there is some header file missing like this one :
In file included from main.c:2:0:
ptask.h:11:19: fatal error: ptime.h: No such file or directory
I compiled my project using this command :
gcc main.c -L. -lptask
This is all the files in project folder :
libptask.a main.c ptask.h
This is the library content:
$ ar -t libptask.a
pbarrier.c.o
pmutex.c.o
ptask.c.o
ptime.c.o
rtmode.c.o
tstat.c.o
libdl.c.o
dle_timer.c.o
calibrate.c.o
Do I need to add all the headers of this files or just link the lib when compiling ?
Your main.c #include-s ptask.h which in turn #include-s ptime.h. Having compiled static libs alone is not enough (that's the linker's job), you still need to have all used header files (which is the compiler's job), both the ones you use and their dependencies, recursively applicable.
Normally you need to be sure that the header files are in your "include path", something that a lot of compilers define with -I as a command-line option. You'll need to include the source directory of that library, or if it has a make install option, then the place where they got installed.
regarding:
gcc main.c -L. -lptask
this is performing the compile step and the link step in one command.
It is also not enabling the warnings, which should always be enabled during the compile step.
Suggest something similar to the following to compile
gcc -Wall -Wextra -Wconversion -pedantic -std=gnu11 -g -c main.c -o main.o -I.
and when you have fixed all the warnings, then use something similar to the following to link
gcc main.o -o main -L. -lptask
Sorry. I think this question would be very easy to you guys.
I have two c files and one h file, I put those two .c files stack.c and main.c and one .h file stack.h inside a folder named "test" at Desktop.
So they are in C:\Users\user\Desktop\test
However when i try to test this code by writing
gcc -c stack.c sq_main.c -l stack.h
It continuously shows "unkown type name ..."
I think the header file is not included into those two .c files.
Actually I wrote the code
#include "stack.h"
Inside stack.c and main.c
Can anyone tell me how to include header file properly?
You are using GCC wrongly. I guess you are on Linux (or on something emulating it like MinGW ...)
If you insist on giving several commands in a terminal, you'll need to run
gcc -Wall -Wextra -g -c stack.c
gcc -Wall -Wextra -g -c sq_main.c
these two commands are building object files stack.o & sq_main.o (from stack.c & the #include-d stack.h, and sq_main.c & the #include-d stack.h, respectively). The options -Wall -Wextra are asking for all warnings and some extra warnings. The -g option asks for debugging information. The -c option asks for compiling only. Assuming that they are enough for your program, you need to link these object files to make an executable:
gcc -g stack.o sq_main.o -o myprogram
You might need to add -Iinclude-directory options to the compiling commands (the first two), and you might need to add -Llibrary-directory and -llibrary-name to the linking command. Order of arguments to gcc matters a lot. You could also add -H to ask the compiler to show which files are included. And GCC has a lot of other options. Read the Invoking GCC chapter of its documentation.
The .o suffix might be .obj on most Windows systems. You might also need myprogram.exe instead of myprogram. I never used Windows so I cannot help more.
In practice, you should use GNU make and write some Makefile; this answer might inspire you.
I have three C files in total. One is a header [.h] file, two are source [.c] files.
The .h file is called encryption.h and the corresponding source file is encryption.c. The encryption.c has logic, but no main() function. My second c file is called main.c. There I have the main() function that calls methods from encryption.c.
I am compiling these files within terminal on Mac OSx. I am confused on how to compile this, I have tried the following:
gcc -c main.c
gcc -c encryption.c
gcc -c encryption.h
gcc main.o encryption.o encryption.g.gch -o encrypt
This doesn't seem to work though, it says I have a precompiled-header already. I tried finding the answer online, I know it has to be simple, but I haven't had much luck. What is the issue here?
Don't compile the header file. Header files are meant to be included to the source files (using #include directive, in c). Just compile the source files and link them together. Something like
gcc -c main.c
gcc -c encryption.c
gcc main.o encryption.o -o encrypt
or, for shorthand,
gcc main.c encryption.c -o encrypt
Note: If you're bothered about the presence (or absence) of header files while compilation, check the pre-processed output of each source files using gcc -E option.
I have several .c files and one .a object file. What command with gcc should I use to compile them to one exe file? If we use a makefile, how will it look like?
For simple cases you can probably do this:
gcc -o maybe.exe useful.a something.c
Makefiles for non-trivial projects usually first invoke gcc to compile each .c file to a .o object.
gcc -c something.c
Then they invoke the linker (these days often using gcc as a wrapper for it) with a list of .o and .a files to link into an output executable.
gcc -o maybe.exe useful.a something.o
Note also that for most installed libraries, it's typical not to explicitly specify the .a file but instead to say -lhandy which would be short for "try to find something called libhandy.a in the configured (or specified with -L) search directories"
*.a is a static library and not dynamic (*.dll in windows and *.so in linux)
gcc -L<here comes the library path> -l<library name>
for example for the file you have libname.a in the current path you should use:
gcc *.c -L. -lname -o myprogram.o
from the man (put man gcc in the shell command prompt)
You can mix options and other arguments. For the most part, the order
you use doesn't matter. Order does matter when you use several options
of the same kind; for example, if you specify -L more than once, the
directories are searched in the order specified. Also, the placement
of the -l option is significant.
The .a file is a library, already compiled. You compile your .c file to a .o, then you use the linker to link your .o with the .a to produce an executable.