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.
Related
I struggle to understand the way the C manual recommends to write functions in separate files.
When I want to write functions in a separate file with respect to the main, what I usually do is create a header file stuff.h and put everything there:
// this is the stuff.h file
int function_from_stuff(int b)
{
return 2*b;
}
then in the file main.c I will write
// this is the main.c file
#include "stuff.h"
int main()
{
int b=2;
int a=function_from_stuff(b);
printf("%d", a);
return 0;
}
and it all works well.
In the manual (chapter 4.5 Header Files in my edition) , they rather recommend to have several .c files where the functions are defined, and to use the header file only to declare them. So, in my trivial example, they would do something like
// this is the stuff.h file
int function_from_stuff(int b);
and then also create a another separate second_file.c file:
// this is the second_file.c file
#include "stuff.h"
int function_from_stuff(int b)
{
return 2*b;
}
Now, what I do not understand is how this can work, what the compiling order must be, and how I am going to signal the machine that I want second_file.c to be part of the program.
How exactly to do this is entirely dependent on which compiler you use.
what the compiling order must be
The order in which source files are compiled is not particularly important. Each produces an object file, which are then linked together. I suggest you read up on the compilation process if you want to know more about this.
how I am going to signal the machine that I want second_file.c to be part of the program.
This is generally done by simply adding adding second_file.c to your list of source files, but again this is compiler-dependent.
Might be a duplicate but i wasn't able to find a answer for my question.
Usually if you want to import multiple functions from different c files in one main class, one would make a .h file and list up all functions from the .c sources.
My problem is, that all functions are wridden in .asm files. I used extern void asmFunc(int i, char c); to use the function in further code, but they become more and more and i don't want to end up with 200 of those extern lines at the beginning of my main. How can i create a library.h with all assembly functions so i can just write #include "library.h" at the beginning of my main class?
EDIT:
I think i didn't give enough specific information:
I use MINGW gcc and NASM to compile c and asm files
I have to compile all files to .o first so i can match them
The first answer i got didn't work because my compile chain is a bit complicated thanks to the restrictions i have on Windows (i want Linux back)
It looks like this:
I got a folder containing three folders with seperated library-like structures: bwt (basic window toolkit), io and std (stuff like strlen)
They are compiled into bwt.o io.o and std.o.
Now i want to make a .h file for each of them so i can #include "bwt.h" in all kernel classes which need them. How do i get gcc to realize, that all functions in bwt.h are defined in bwt.o?
Since you have a .o file, it doesn't matter that the source for those routines is assembly. As long as you know how to call them as C functions that's what matters.
So put all of your extern declarations for the assembly functions in library.h, then #include "library.h" in your main file. Then you can link them.
gcc -c main.c
gcc -o program main.o asmfunctions.o
You can:
Make a file
Save the file as library.h (same folder as your C file)
Put your extern declarations* in the file
Add #include "library.h" in your C file
#include is literally copy-paste. You can put some code into another file, and then you can #include that file, and the compiler pretends you wrote the code in the main file directly. That's how it works.
* by the way, you don't need to write extern when declaring functions - only variables.
Ok so I am doing a final project for one of my classes and trying to do a bit extra and create multiple files to work with. I am coding inside of CodeBlocks. So far I have a main.c, levels.c, and levels.h for my files. Inside of the levels.c levelOne function, I put the printf statement as a test to make sure I could have the two files work with each other before I went forward in my coding. I got a "undefined reference to 'levelOne' when I compiled and ran the program.
Inside my main.c file:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include "levels.h"
int main()
{
levelOne();
return 0;
}
Inside my levels.h file:
#ifndef LEVELS_H_INCLUDED
#define LEVELS_H_INCLUDED
void levelSelect(char c);
void levelOne();
void levelTwo();
void levelThree();
void levelCustom(int difficulty);
#endif // LEVELS_H_INCLUDED
Inside my levels.c file:
void levelOne()
{
//level scope of 1 to 10
srand(time(NULL));
int randomNum = (rand() % 9)+1);
printf("the random number is: %i\n", randomNum);
}
levels.c is not getting passed into the compiler, are you sure you have included levels.c in the whole project? If not it will not link. You need a project if you want to compile multiple files. In CodeBlocks, the sources and the settings for the build process are stored in a project file <name>.cbp
Here is the User Manual
gcc levels.c main.c should link successfully. gcc main.c will only compile one file and try and link to create final executable and levelOne() will not be found. since it is in file levels.c
You need to include levels.h in levels.c as well or if a function (physically) above levelOne calls it, it is undefined.
Then compile it with gcc -Wall *.c -o myapp to compile and link all of the c files in that directory into myapp (or you can name them individually) with (almost) all warnings enabled. This is provided you have it in its own directory.
Once you get into larger projects with more code, you can compile individual .c files into .o object files with gcc -Wall -c somecode.c and then link all the objects with gcc *.o -o myapp. If it gets really large, you'll want a build system to help with rebuilding objects only when its code (or dependent code) changes (such as Makefiles, waf, and dare I say autotools).
I had this exact same problem, the solution is easy. Right click on levels.c and select properties. A properties window should come up select the "Build" tab tick compile file, link file, and in the box check debug and release. This should fix your problem.
Don't make the mistake of doing this with a header file because it will give you a "...h.gch: file not recognized: File format not recognized.." error.
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.
I know this is common in most languages, and maybe in C, as well. Can C handle separating several functions out to a separate file and having them be included?
The functions will rely on other include files, as well. I want the code to retain all functionality, but the code will be reused in several C scripts, and if I change it once I do not wish to have to go through every script and change it there, too.
Most definitely! What you're describing are header files. You can read more about this process here, but I'll outline the basics below.
You'll have your functions separated into a header file called functions.h, which contains the following:
int return_ten();
Then you can have a functions.c file which contains the definition of the function:
int return_ten()
{
return 10;
}
Then in your main.c file you can include the functions.h in the following way:
#include <stdio.h>
#include "functions.h"
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
printf("The number you're thinking of is %d\n", return_ten());
return 0;
}
This is assuming that your functions.h file is in the same directory as your main.c file.
Finally, when you want to compile this into your object file you need to link them together. Assuming you're using a command-line compiler, this just means adding the extra definition file onto the end. For the above code to work, you'd type the follow into your cmd: gcc main.c functions.c which would produce an a.out file that you can run.
Declare the functions in header files and then implement them in .c files. Now you can #include the header files into any program that uses the functions and then link the program against the object files generated from the .c files.
Say you have a file with a function that you want to use elsewhere:
int func2(int x){
/*do some stuff */
return 0;
}
what you would do is split this up into a header file and a source file. In the header file you just have the function declaration, this tells the compiler that that function does exist, even if it is in a different file. The header might be called func2.h might look like this:
#ifndef HEADER_FUNC2_H
#define HEADER_FUNC2_H
int func2(int x);
#endif /*HEADER_FUNC2_H*/
The #ifndef HEADER_FUNC2_H part is to make sure that this only gets used once so that there are no multiple definitions going on.
then in the source func2.c file you have the actual function itself:
int func2(int x){
/*do some stuff */
return 0;
}
and in any other file now that you use func2 you have to include the header. You do this with #include "func2.h". So for example if we wanted to call func2 from randomfile.c it would be like this:
#include "func2.h"
/* rest of randomfile.c */
func2(1);
Then the last step is to link the object file that contains the function with the compiler when you compile.
If you want to reuse functions across multple programs, you should place them in a library and link it with the rest of your code.
If you want to share the same definitions (e.g. macros, types, ...) you can place them in a header file and include them with #include.
Please refrain from directly "#include" function code into a source file, it's a bad practice and can lead to very problematic situations (especially if you are a beginner, as your tag suggests).
Consder that normally when you have a set of functions you want to share and reuse, you will need both! You will usually end up with a myfuncs.lib (or libmyfuncs.a) library and a myfuncs.h header.
In the programs where you want to reuse your existing functions, you will include the header and link against the library.
You can also look at how to use dynamic libraries once you have mastered the usage of static libraries.