If I make headerfile.h and then headerfile.c with the source code for the functions. Once I compile the main C file sampleprogram.c
cc -o sampleprogram headerfile.c sampleprogram.c
Is that source file for the header still needed?
Is headerfile.c and sampleprogram.c compiled and linked together?
Do you need to include the headerfile.h along with sampleprogram if you were to put the program on a usb drive and put it on a different computer?
Headers are not required to execute a program or to use a shared/static library. However, headers are required to write code that uses the interface of a library. Usually, under RedHat distros, you'd have rpms that install the library (libuv) and rpms that install the headers (libuv-devel).
Therefore, without headers, you can execute a program, or you can link against a library. However, if you want to write code that uses the API of a library, you need the headers on your system.
If you compile a program and put it on a USB drive, all you need is the executable. However, you might need to recompile your program as the compiler targeted the specific architecture of the system it ran on. If you move the executable to another computer, it might not work.
Short answer:
No, it is not needed.
Longer answer:
No it is not needed, because when you use #include, the content of the header file will basically be pasted in to the C file. Because of that, the executable will not need the header file nor the c file to run (they are compiled into the executable already by the compiler)
Related
I downloaded the libftp source from here, and compiled it using make. Now I just have a binary called "ftp" in the same directory. Do I need to move it to one of the root directories, like /usr/bin? Do I still need the source files so that I can #include the library?
To use a library in your own code, first you need that library - generally named lib{name}.a or lib{name}.so. The library will be required during linking. So when you make, make sure it creates the library and not just the ftp binary.
Secondly, at compile time you will need the header files so that the #include's don't throw errors. So as far as source goes, you will at least need the header files.
I am using the Pelles C IDE and for certain projects have to tell the linker to include a certain library e.g. Ws2_32.lib. Currently I am developing a function I plant to reuse frequently throughout numerous projects, so I decided to make a header file for it. Is there a way to tell the linker to include a certain library from the header file ?
You have link the library, no other way.
If compiler is gcc in linux, you can link the lirary libtemp.so like
gcc youfile.c -ltemp
And before running the executable add the path of libtemp.so to LD_LIBRARY_PATH
In your IDE you can config the samething.
I have a c program which needs a library named libnuma to be installed. But I dont have root access in the parallel machine in which I need to run this program. So I downloaded the source code of libnuma and compiled it. I have a libnuma.a file which i assume is the library. I need to link this library with the c program that I have. This program uses autotools for generating the configuration files and the makefile. I am new to autotools. Please tell me what I have to do to link this library without being root.
Ajay.
It should be sufficient to set CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS. First, try:
$ ./configure LDFLAGS=-L/path/to/lib CPPFLAGS=-I/path/to/include
(where libnuma.a is /path/to/lib/libnuma.a and numa.h is /path/to/include/numa.h.
That is, specify the directories.) If that does not work, check config.log to see what went wrong. If the configure script for the program you are using was built with an old version of autoconf, you may need to do:
$ LDFLAGS=-L/path/to/lib CPPFLAGS=-I/path/to/include ./configure
instead. (The second invocation will only work in Bourne shells. With csh/tcsh, you will need to set the environment variables some other way, for example with env.) You also have the option of making those settings in the environment of your shell (eg, in a .bashrc) or in a config.site file.
I have to use LU decompostion to fit a simple model to some data (simulated) in C. An example of what I need to do is here:
However, I'm stuck with a more basic problem: how do I install packages in C and call them in my code?
I'm new in C and I'm used to R. But I have this assingment to do some tests about Matrix inversion, LU decomposision and the professor suggested using Lapack to easy things (thus, I don't need to code myself the LU decomposition etc.). But I don't know how to install the package and call it in my code, in order to use the functions of LAPACK.
I have a windows 7 64 bits and I'm using compiler Code Blocks 8.02
Thanks for any help.
Normally you don't "install" C libraries in that sense. Normally, in Windows you have three types of files. The header files, typically ending in .h, the dynamic library, .dll, and most likely some linker files (typically, .lib, .a or something). The linker and compiler will need to be able to find these files somewhere. Normally you set the include directory paths, and library directory paths.
E.g. Let's say you downloaded a library called foo, and you extract it to C:\foo.
In that folder, libfoo.a, foo.dll and foo.h reside. In Code::Blocks you will have to point include directory path to C:\foo and library path to C:\foo so that the linker and compiler know where to look for these files. Since you're linking against the foo library, you will also have to set -lfoo or something similiar in linker command line. This is GCC syntax, but I think Code::Blocks uses GCC compiler behind the scenes anyways.
In the C code you can just #include <foo.h> and the compiler will find it for you.
You need to install that library and it might actually supply a tool for that. Check their documentation (e.g. a file INSTALL or README in their distributed sources). If the library uses only headers you might only need to copy it's headers to some directory on your system, but their buildsystem might be able to do that for you.
Once that is done you would tell your IDE on where to look for the sources and if the library uses not just headers to link against the actual library file. See the documentation in the Code::Blocks Wiki on how this is done for some example cases and adapt for your library.
The simplest thing to do in your situation is to install Cygwin. You can use the setup.exe installer to install the GCC and the LAPACK libraries. When you want to use the LAPACK library, you will add the -llapack option to your GCC command line.
I'm sure this question has been asked many times, but I can't figure this out. Bear with me.
So when you download a library, you get a bunch of .c and .h files, plus a lot of other stuff. Now say you want to write a program using this library.
I copy all the .h files into my project directory. It just doesn't compile.
Great, so then I get the library as a bunch of .dll's, and i copy the dlls into my project directory. Still doesn't compile.
How does this work?
What do you do, like right after creating the folder for your project? What parts of the library package do you copy/paste into the folder? How do you make it so that it can compile? Go through the steps with me please.
Where to put the .h files?
Where to put the .dll files?
How to compile?
Thanks.
(the library I'm trying to get working is libpng, I'm in windows with MinGW, and i'm looking to compile from command-line like usual.)
(from what i gather, you put the .h files in directory A and the .dll files in directory B and you can use -l and -L compiler options to tell the compiler where to find them, is this correct?)
Here's a brief guide to what happens when you compile and build a basic C project:
The first stage compiles all your source files - this takes the source files you've written and translates them into what are called object files. At this stage the compiler needs to know the declaration of all functions you use in your code, even in external libraries, so you need to use #include to include the header files of whatever libraries you use. This also means that you need to tell the compiler the location of those header files. With GCC you can use the -I command line to feed in directories to be searched for header files.
The next stage is to link all the object files together into one executable. At this stage the linker needs to resolve the calls to external libraries. This means you need the library in object form. Most libraries will give you instructions on how to generate this or might supply it ready built. Under Linux the library file is often a .a or .so file, though it might just be a .o. Again you can feed the location of the library's object file to GCC with the -L option.
Thus your command line would look like this:
gcc myProg.c -I/path/to/libpng/include -L/path/to/libpng/lib -lpng -o myProg.exe
(Note that when using the -l command line GCC automatically adds lib to the start of the library, so -lpng causes libpng.a to be linked in.)
Hope that helps.
Doing it under windows (supposing you user Visual Studio)
After unpacking add the library include directories to your projects' settings (Project -> Properties -> C/C++ -> Additional Include Directories)
Do the same thing for the Libraries Directory (Project -> Properties -> Linker -> Additional Library Directories)
Specify the name of the library in your Linker Input: Project -> Properties -> Linker -> Input -> Additional Dependencies
After this hopefully should compile.
I don't recommend adding the directories above to the Global settings in Visual Studio (Tools -> Options -> Project and Solutions) since it will create and environment where something compiles on your computer and does NOT compile on another one.
Now, the hard way, doing it for a Makefile based build system:
Unpack your stuff
Specify the include directory under the -I g++ flag
Specify the Library directory under the -L g++ flag
Specify the libraries to use like: -llibrary name (for example: -lxml2 for libxml2.so)
Specify the static libraries like: library name.a
at the end you should have a command which is ugly and looks like:
g++ -I/work/my_library/include -L/work/my_library/lib -lmylib my_static.a -o appname_exe MYFILE.CPP
(the line above is not really tested just a general idea)
I recommend go, grab a template makefile from somewhere and add in all your stuff.
You must link against a .lib or something equivalent i.e. add the ".lib" to the libraries read by the linker. At least that's how it works under Linux... haven't done Windows so a long while.
The ".lib" contains symbols to data/functions inside the .dll shared library.
It depends on the library. For examples, some libraries contain precompiled binaries (e.g. dlls) and others you need to compile them yourself. You'd better see the library's documentation.
Basically, to compile you should:
(1) have the library's include (.h) file location in the compiler's include path,
(2) have the library stubs (.lib) location in the linker's library path, and have the linker reference the relevant library file.
In order to run the program you need to have the shared libraries (dlls) where the loader can see them, for example in your system32 directory.
There are two kinds of libraries: static and dynamic (or shared.)
Static libraries come in an object format and you link them directly into your application.
Shared or dynamic libraries reside in a seperate file (.dll or .so) which must be present at the time your application is run. They also come with object files you must link against your application, but in this case they contain nothing more than stubs that find and call the runtime binary (the .dll or the .so).
In either case, you must have some header files containing the signatures (declarations) of the library functions, else your code won't compile.
Some 'libraries' are header-only and you need do nothing more than include them. Some consist of header and source files. In that case you should compile and link the sources against your application just as you would do with a source file you wrote.
When you compile, assuming you have the libs and the headers in the same folder as the sources you are compiling, you need to add to your compile line -L . -I . -lpng. -L tells the linker where to look for the library, -I tells the compiler where to look for the headers and -lpng tells the linker to link with the png library.
[Edit]
Normal projects would have some sort of hierarchy where the headers are in an /include folder and the 3rd party libs are in a /libs folder. In this case, you'd put -I ./include and -L ./libs instead of -I . and -L.
[Edit2] Most projects make use of makefile in order to compile from the command line. You can only compile manually for a small number of files, it gets quite hectic after that
Also,
you may want to look over Dynamic Loading support in various languages and on various
platforms.
This support is very handy in cases when you want to use a library optionally and you don't want your program to fail in case that library is not available.