I am planning a bigger C-only project. It should run on both Linux and Windows. My question is, what is the optimal development stack (compiler, IDE) on Windows? Problem is, we would like to use C99 (if possible).
On Linux it's quite easy because usually combination GCC+VIM+GIT is optimal. But on Windows?
I am concerning: Visual Studio 2010 (no C99 support), MinGW and Intel C++ Compiler.
How do they compare with each other in terms of performance?
For IDE, I've happily used VC++, MonoDevelop, and Code::Blocks (the latter two are cross-platform, as a plus). C isn't a very difficult language to make an IDE for, so most anything will work and it'll just come down to personal preference.
For compiler... C is very quick to compile on all of them, so I guess by performance you mean of generated code?
In my experience, Intel C++ optimizes best if you're targeting Intel CPUs. MinGW GCC optimizes best for everything else. VC++ optimizes very good, but not quite as much as GCC or ICC. This is of course in the general sense only -- I've had plenty experiences where VC++ bests them both.
VC++ compiler can integrate with some non-VC++ IDEs, like Code::Blocks. As you said, lacks C99 support (though, it does have stdint.h).
MinGW integrates with most IDEs, except VC++. Once upon a time its port of libstdc++ lacked support for wchar_t, making Unicode apps very difficult to write. I'm not sure if this has changed.
ICC integrates with the VC++ IDE, some non-VC++ IDEs, as well as supporting C99 and Linux, however it has been shown in the past to deliberately use sub-optimal code when used with non-Intel CPUs -- I'm not sure if this is still the case.
Agner Fog's Optimizing software in C++ provides a decent comparison of compilers, included optimization capabilities.
Well, GCC is GCC. Performance is identical over different OSes, minus ABI and C stdlib differences that may impact performance.
This is an easy problem to solve, use GCC everywhere, meaning MinGW, or the more up to date mingw-w64 (includes 32 and 64-bit compilation capabilities). It provides all (most, meaning 99.9%) of the Win32 API when you need it.
Note that although it's the same compiler, ABI is different for say, Windows x64 vs Linux x64 (in this case: the size of long), and you should ensure the code compiles and works on all platforms you intend to target, regularly.
Using GCC with -pedantic-errors -Wall -Wextra is a nice help for this (if you silence all warnings!), but not perfect.
The Intel compiler will bring better performance, but is only free for personal use on Linux (you can't distribute binaries produced by the free version if I remember correctly), so if you want free tools, that's out. Visual C sucks at C99. It's a C89 compiler, and that isn't going to change soon.
Most development tools are available on Windows as well, see for example msysgit and vim.
Related
So Microsoft's MSVC from Visual Studio 2019 doesn't support C99 (or later), but it does support C89 and some constructs from C99.
Is there an option for the GCC C-compiler (not C++-compiler) to use a standard that would guarantee that the source can also be compiled with MSVC? If it compiles with -std=iso9899:199409 -pedantic under GCC, can MSVC compile it?
Is there a reason you need to care if MSVC can compile it? GCC ("mingw") can target Windows PE object files with ABI compatible with MSVC, so users could build with that, or you could even ship them binary object files/library files to use so they don't need any tooling.
Policing your code base for compatibility with a known-broken/intentionally-broken compiler does not seem like a worthwhile activity unless you actually have reason to want to use that compiler, rather than just allowing users of that compiler to link with your code.
Pretty much the only way to you can ensure it builds with MSVC and GCC is to build the code with both toolsets. In addition to language constructs, there are a number of differences in the handling of compiler-defined preprocessor symbols, differences in what the preprocessor can handle, etc.
Personally I've been doing a lot of work getting C++ code to build with MSVC and Clang, and I've hit many minor issues that have to be fixed to get things to build with both toolsets. The C/C++ language standards help make the code portable, but you still have to run it through more than one toolset to get it to build 'cleanly'.
If you want your code to be robustly portable you also should build it for multiple architectures.
For my GitHub libraries, I build for ARM, ARM64, x86, x64 on MSVC, VS 2015 Update 3/VS 2017/VS 2019, targeting Win32 desktop, UWP, and Xbox One. I also build with clang for Windows for x86 and x64. Each one finds slightly different issues, but the end result is a lot more portable.
I'm an avid Python user and it seems that I require MinGW to be installed on my Windows machine to compile some libraries. I'm a little confused about MinGW and GCC. Here's my question (from a real dummy point of view):
So Python is language which both interpreted and compiled. There are Linux and Windows implementations of Python which one simply installs and used the binary to a execute his code. They come bundled with a bunch of built-in libraries that you can use. It's the same with Ruby from what I've read.
Now, I've done a tiny bit a of C and I know that one has a to compile it. It has its built-in libraries which seem to be called header files which you can use. Now, back in the school day's, C, was writing code in a vi-like IDE called Turbo-C and then hitting F9 to compile it. That's pretty much where my C education ends.
What is MinGW and what is GCC? I've been mainly working on Windows systems and have even recently begun using Cygwin. Aren't they the same?
A simple explanation hitting these areas would be helpful.
(My apologies if this post sounds silly/stupid. I thought I'd ask here. Ignoring these core bits never made anyone a better programmer.)
Thanks everyone.
MinGW is a complete GCC toolchain (including half a dozen frontends, such as C, C++, Ada, Go, and whatnot) for the Windows platform which compiles for and links to the Windows OS component C Runtime Library in msvcrt.dll. Rather it tries to be minimal (hence the name).
This means, unlike Cygwin, MinGW does not attempt to offer a complete POSIX layer on top of Windows, but on the other hand it does not require you to link with a special compatibility library.
It therefore also does not have any GPL-license implications for the programs you write (notable exception: profiling libraries, but you will not normally distribute those so that does not matter).
The newer MinGW-w64 comes with a roughly 99% complete Windows API binding (excluding ATL and such) including x64 support and experimental ARM implementations. You may occasionally find some exotic constant undefined, but for what 99% of the people use 99% of the time, it just works perfectly well.
You can also use the bigger part of what's in POSIX, as long as it is implemented in some form under Windows. The one major POSIX thing that does not work with MinGW is fork, simply because there is no such thing under Windows (Cygwin goes through a lot of pain to implement it).
There are a few other minor things, but all in all, most things kind of work anyway.
So, in a very very simplified sentence: MinGW(-w64) is a "no-frills compiler thingie" that lets you write native binary executables for Windows, not only in C and C++, but also other languages.
To compile C program you need a C implementation for your specific computer.
C implementations consist, basically, of a compiler (its preprocesser and headers) and a library (the ready-made executable code).
On a computer with Windows installed, the library that contains most ready-made executable code is not compatible with gcc compiler ... so to use this compiler in Windows you need a different library: that's where MinGW enters. MinGW provides, among other things, the library(ies) needed for making a C implementation together with gcc.
The Windows library and MSVC together make a different implementation.
MinGW is a suite of development tools that contains GCC (among others), and GCC is a C compiler within that suite.
MinGW is an implementation of most of the GNU building utilities, like gcc and make on windows, while gcc is only the compiler. Cygwin is a lot bigger and sophisticated package, wich installs a lot more than MinGW.
The only reason for existence of MinGW is to provide linux-like environment for developers not capable of using native windows tools. It is inferior in almost every respect to Microsoft tooolchains on Win32/Win64 platforms, BUT it provides environment where linux developer does not have to learn anything new AND he/she can compile linux code almost without modifications. It is a questionable approach , but many people find that convenience more important than other aspects of the development .
It has nothing to do with C or C++ as was indicated in earlier answers, it has everything to do with the environment developer wants. Argument about GNU toolchains on windows and its nessessety, is just that - an argument
GCC - unix/linux compiler,
MinGW - approximation of GCC on Windows environment,
Microsoft compiler and Intel compiler - more of the same as names suggest(both produce much , much better programs on Windows then MinGW, btw)
I wanted to know what is the current standard C compiler being used by companies. I know of the following compilers and don't understand which one to use for learning purposes.
Turbo C
Borland C
GCC
DJGPP
I am learning C right now and referring to the K&R book.
Can anyone please guide me to which compiler to use?
GCC would be the standard, best supported and fastest open source compiler used by most (sane) people.
GCC is going to have the best support of the choices you've listed for the simple reason that it comes standard in GNU and is the target of Linux. It's very unlikely any organization would use the other three beyond possibly supporting some horrible legacy application.
Other C compilers you might look into include:
Clang: an up-and-comer, particularly for BSD and Mac OS X
Visual Studio Express: for Windows programming
Intel Compiler Suite: very high performance; costs money
Portland Group: another high-performance commercial compiler; used typically for supercomputers
PathScale: yet another commercial high-performance compiler
If you are starting to learn the language, Clang's much better diagnostics will help you.
To make your (job) applications tools section look better, GCC (and maybe Visual Studio) are good to have knowledge of.
GCC (which I use in those rare moments when I use C) or ICC (Intel C Compiler), though ICC is known for making code that runs slowly on AMD processors.
Depends on the platform you are using and planning to learn on or will do future development.
On Windows you can use Visual Studio Express C++ which supports standard ANSI C usage. Option two is Cygwin which is a library and tool set that replicates much of what you would use on Linux or other Unix style OS's ( it uses GCC ).
On the Mac you would want XCode which is the standard development tools including C compiler ( based on GCC ).
On many Unix type systems it will be cc or gcc depending on the OS vendor.
If you have the money some of the paid compilers like the Intel one are exceptional but likely won't be much help in learning the programming craft at this point.
If you use LINUX operating system GCC is the best compiler. You can separate each compiler steps like preprocessing , assembler , linker separately in GCC compiler using some command line options. You can analyze step by step of compilation of your C source code easily. I suggest to go for "GNU C COMPILER(GCC)". You can use "CC" command, its nothing but a symbolic link to GCC.
I can recommend OpenWatcom which was once used to develop Netware. Only supports IA-32 but does it well. Contains a basic IDE and a basic but competent profiler. Something for the real programmer :)
Then there is Pelles C which supports x86-64. It has a basic VC-like IDE but few support programs.
I like these two because the compilers are competent and you get going quickly without having to pore over manuals and wondering what the options mean.
If you are on windows use MinGW or like most have suggested ggo with GCC on Linux
Though ofcourse since it's commandline so you might find Dev-C++ and/or Code::Blocks, Eclipse CDT etc which are IDEs useful for you to make your job simpler.
There is no standard and each compiler and it's libraries differ from one another.
gcc is best and free. GO FOR GNU!
How come the Linux kernel can compile only with GCC? What GNU C extensions are really necessary for some projects and why?
Here's a couple gcc extensions the Linux kernel uses:
inline assembly
gcc builtins, such as __builtin_expect,__builtin_constant,__builtin_return_address
function attributes to specify e.g. what registers to use (e.g. __attribute__((regparm(0)),__attribute__((packed, aligned(PAGE_SIZE))) ) )
specific code depending on gcc predefined macros (e.g. workarounds for certain gcc bugs in certain versions)
ranges in switch cases (case 8 ... 15:)
Here's a few more: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-gcc-hacks/
Much of these gcc specifics are very architecture dependent, or is made possible because of how gcc is implemented, and probably do not make sense to be specified by a C standard. Others are just convenient extensions to C. As the Linux kernel is built to rely on these extensions, other compilers have to provide the same extensions as gcc to be able to build the kernel.
It's not that Linux had to rely on these features of gcc, e.g. the NetBSD kernel relies very little on gcc specific stuff.
GCC supports Nested Functions, which are not part of the C99 standard. That said, some analysis is required to see how prevalent they actually are within the linux kernel.
Linux kernel was written to be compiled by GCC, so standard compliance was never an objective for kernel developers.
And if GCC offers some useful extensions that make coding easier or compiled kernel smaller or faster, it was a natural choice to use these extensions.
I guess it's not they are really that necessary. Just there are many useful ones and cross-compiler portability is not that much an issue for Linux kernel to forgo the niceties. Not to mention sheer amount of work it would take to get rid of relying on extensions.
Can you please give me some comparison between C compilers especially with respect to optimization?
Actually there aren't many free compilers around. gcc is "the" free compiler and probably one of the best when it comes to optimisation, even when compared to proprietary compilers.
Some independent benchmarks are linked from here:
http://gcc.gnu.org/benchmarks/
I believe Intel allows you to use its ICC compilers under Linux for non-commercial development for free. ICC beats gcc and Visual Studio hands down when it comes to code generation for x86 and x86-64 (i.e. it typically generates faster code, and can do a decent job of auto-vectorization (SIMD) in some cases).
This is a hard question to answer since you did not tell us what platform you are using, neither hardware or os....
But joemoe is right, gcc tend to excel in this field.
(As a side note: On some platforms there are commercial compilers that are better, but since you gain so much more that just the compiler gcc is hard to beat...)
the Windows SDK is a free download. it includes current versions of the Visual C++ compilers. These compilers do a very good job of optimisation.