'.' is not recognized as an internal or external command - c++

I just started learning C++, and I've been trying to run my program from the command line using:
g++ helloworld.cpp
which works, then I typed
./a.out
then it returns the error '.' is not recognized as an internal or external command.
I tried doing a.out, but it returns:
'a.out' is not recognized as an internal or external command.
I'm pretty new to the command line so it might be quite a novice problem. I'm using the gnu gcc compiler. My code is just a simple code for printing "helloworld", and it doesn't seem to be a problem with the code since the line g++ helloworld.cpp doesn't throw up any error. Just to add, I'm using windows 8.

My best guess would be that a.out is not in your directory. Usually, when compiling your program from the command line, add the -o flag and name your executable (like helloworld.exe). Then you'll be sure that an executable of that name is actually being created.
In your case, since you're most likely running Windows, without specifying a -o flag, the default is a.exe and not a.out, so when you used ./a.out that executable didn't exist. In this case, you can run your program by typing a or a.exe. You don't need the leading ./ on Windows.

./a.out
If you are in *NIX world, using linux or any other UNIX related platforms
.(dot) means current directory and a.out is an executable.
ls -l a.out
list its permissions and make sure it has executable permission. If it dont have use following command to give it permission; usually it should have when your generated the a.out file.
chmod 755 a.out
If your file is not in current directory use the absolute path to invoke the executable file
<absolute_path>/a.out
It should work if you have taken care all above criteria.

In the Windows world, "\" is used to separate files and directories:
C:\Windows\System32\Etc
However most other operating systems, and the web, use "/"
file:///c/windows/system32/etc
/etc/motd
In Unix "." refers to the current directory, and Windows/DOS mostly support this.
The Unix-based compilers expect you to specify an output file name for a compilation, and the default is "a.out". But you can override it with "-o"
g++ test.cpp -o test.exe
This creates a file called "test.exe" in the current directory. If you are using MinGW's "bash" command line, you should be able to run the above executable by typing:
./test.exe # note: no spaces!
at a "$" prompt
$ ./test.exe
However, if you are in a directory, say C:\Dev in the DOS command prompt, that won't work. DOS thinks '/' means "start of a parameter":
C:\Dev\> dir /w
outputs "wide" format dir
So, if you're using DOS, you just need to type:
test.exe
or
.\test.exe
e.g.
C:\Dev\> test.exe
C:\Dev\> .\test.exe
C:\Dev\> c:\dev\test.exe
or if you're relying on "a.out"
C:\Dev\> a.out
C:\Dev\> .\a.out

Related

Where are GNU Make's implicit rules defined? How can I change them on macOS?

I wrote some C++ code in Windows. When I run make fileName from the Visual Studio Code terminal I see the command that make runs is g++ fileName.cpp -o fileName.
I then compile the same file in macOS Catalina using the same command make fileName and the command that make runs is c++ fileName.cpp -o fileName. I have run make -p -f /dev/null and saw that the CXX variable is set to c++ which is an alias to clang.
I would like make to use g++ on macOS as it does on windows.
I have seen posts mentioning you can change the implicit variables but haven't figured out how to do it. I already changed the default compiler in VS Code from usr/bin/clang to usr/bin/gcc and also tried with usr/bin/g++ but the command doesn't change to g++ fileName.cpp -o fileName as desired.
I have also tried running CXX=g++, and CXX='/usr/bin/g++ in the terminal but that didn't work.
Is there a way to do it? I would like to not have to create a makefile in my directory and instead just change the implicit rule.

Compile C++ on Windows

I'm trying to compile C++ on Windows.
The command needed to compile on Linux is:
g++ -O3 -Wall -shared -std=c++11 -fPIC `python -m pybind11 --includes` EO_functions_bipartite.cpp -o extremal_bi.so
I installed MinGW but when I try to compile I get the following error:
g++.exe: error: python: No such file or directory
g++.exe: error: pybind11: No such file or directory
g++.exe: error: unrecognized command line option '-m'
g++.exe: error: unrecognized command line option '--includes EO_functions_bipartite.cpp'
g++.exe: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.
Assuming you have python in your path.
The backtick escape thing that embeds the python -m pybind11 --includes command within the g++ doesn't work on cmd.exe in Windows.
Run the python -m pybind11 --includes command on its own line in the cmd shell. Take the output of that command and substitute in into the g++ command. It should be a bunch of -I include params.
So if the output of the python command is this:
-IC:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.7_3.7.2544.0_x64__qbz5n2kfra8p0\Include -IC:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.7_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python37\site-packages\pybind11\include
Expand your g++ command to be this:
g++ -O3 -Wall -shared -std=c++11 -fPIC "-IC:\Program Files\WindowsApps\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.7_3.7.2544.0_x64__qbz5n2kfra8p0\Include" -IC:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.7_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python37\site-packages\pybind11\include EO_functions_bipartite.cpp -o extremal_bi.so
Notice the quotes I put around the first include directory because it has a space in its path.
The easiest way to start on native Windows if you have a Linux background is to install MSYS2 shell with MinGW-w64. This will provide an actual bash that allows you to run commands almost exactly the same way as on Linux, including support for backticks like in the case of your issue.
Though I would always recommend using $( ... ) instead of backticks, as this allows nesting.
Note that MinGW-w64 also exists on Windows to allow cross-building for Windows from Linux, but that may be a bit more difficult if you have never done any cross-building before.
Also -shared ... -o extremal_bi.so in your command should be replaced with -shared ... -o extremal_bi.dll -Wl,--out-implib,libextremal_bi.dll.a as .so files don't exist on Windows as Windows uses .dll files for shared libraries and the compiler uses .dll.a files as library objects for them.
Finally on Windows you need to tell the compiler or linker which symbols you will be exporting by either writing a libextremal_bi.def starting with the line EXPORTS followed all the symbols you want to be exported and include -def libextremal_bi.def in the link command, or using __declspec(dllexport)/__declspec(dllimport) when defining those symbols, which may be a bit complexer as it requires some conditional defines to determine if the code is being compiled for Windows and if it's during the actual build process of the shared library (__declspec(dllexport)) or code that uses it (__declspec(dllimport)). There is also another method to export all symbols, but that's a dirty method that may more easily cause symbol conflicts.

C++ code compiles, but shows an error when running on Zorin OS

I'm learning C++ and trying to run a simple hello world program. It compiles but it won't execute. It worked on Windows, but it won't run on Zorin OS.
I read online that the command to run it is ./test or ./test.exe.
This is what is looks like on the terminal:
$ g++ test.cpp -o test.exe
$ ./test
bash: ./test: No such file or directory
I looked at the questions similar to this, but none have helped me.
You can not expect to be able to execute the same commands on both Windows and Linux. They use different shells with different syntax and different behaviors.
Here's a typical example of compiling a file on GNU/Linux:
dir$ g++ myfile.cpp -o myfile
dir$ ./myfile
Here's a typical example of compiling the same file on Windows:
dir> g++ myfile.cpp -o myfile.exe
dir> myfile
Note in particular:
Linux doesn't use .exe or other extensions on executables, but Windows does.
Windows doesn't require specifying directory to run files in the working directory, but Bash on GNU/Linux generally does.
The only reason why the compilation command is as similar as it is is that g++ is a Unix tool ported to both platforms. Windows normally uses / instead of - for flags like -o
As commands get more complex, they start diverging even further.

C++ source compilation using MATLAB Engine and g++

It would be helpful if you could provide some guidance on how to compile c++ source code files in an Ubuntu environment, using the MATLAB Engine with g++.
I assume that you want to know the procedure for compiling the c++ code (which calls MATLAB engine) using g++ from Linux Terminal. To do so, follow the steps below:
Include following paths in PATH variable:
a) Location of MATLAB i.e. $matlabroot/bin
b) $matlabroot/sys/os
You can do this by using the command
'setenv PATH $matlabroot/bin:$matlabroot/sys/os:$PATH ' .
In the command prompt, navigate to the directory where the cpp code is located using cd command. For instance, if you are compiling engdemo.cpp, you need to navigate to $matlabroot/extern/examples/eng_mat/engdemo.cpp
You need to call the compiler with required include files and libraries. For this you can use -I and -L switches for that. Note that the order is important. So you need to use the command as below:
g++ engdemo.cpp -I "$matlabroot/extern/include" -L "$matlabroot/bin/glnxa64" -leng -lmat -lmex -lut -o engdemo.o
The above command will generate an object file engdemo.o. To execute this, use the command ./engdemo.o
You can refer to the document at http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~jsp/Downloads/MatlabEngine/MatlabEngine.pdf for more help regarding C++ and MATLAB.
The compilation process in C/C++ is divided in two phases:
First, the compilation where source code is transformed into machines code with multiples object files (.o or .obj).
Then, the link to transform object files into a single executable file (.dll or .exe).
C/C++ programs that run matlab engine need three things:
1> A compiler that is compatible with matlab engine.
2> Reference to API header files('.h' for c or '.hpp' for c++) for compilation.
3> Reference to the libraries('.lib' for windows,'.so' for linux) for external symbol link.
You can see comptatible linux based system compiler here.
The GCC C/C++ 4.9.x is compatible so you can use g++.
As this pdf suggested, the API header files should be there $matlabroot/extern/include and the .so files should be in $matlabroot/
bin/glnax64 where $matlabroot is your matlab install folder
Set up Environment variables
Open your temnial with ctrl + alt + T and type :
setenv PATH $matlabroot/bin:$matlabroot/sys/os:$PATH
You can then go to the folder where source file is located, let's say $matlabroot/extern/examples/eng_mat/ with the following command :
cd $matlabroot/extern/examples/eng_mat/
You need to do the compilation with :
g++ -c engDemo.cpp -I '$matlabroot/extern/include' -leng -lmat -lmex -lut
After that, a file named engDemo.o should be created.
The -leng -lmat -lmex -lut options are probably needed among other things because of the usage of the matlab interpreter that should be located in $matlabroot/bin
And the external symbol link with :
g++ -o engDemo -L '$matlabroot/bin/glnax64'
Be careful as this path sugested that you are on a x64 architecture machine, if you are not,the path might be slightly different.
Then you can execute your file just by doing ./engDemo
I can't install the matlab engine on the laptot I am using so I'm unable to test the instruction I gave you but It should be done this way.
Hope it helps !!

Build a Linux executable using GCC

I'm using Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and compiling C++ files with GCC, but when I compile, gcc makes an a.out file that is the executable. How can I make Linux executables?
That executable is a "Linux executable" - that is, it's executable on any recent Linux system. You can rename the file to what you want using
rename a.out your-executable-name
or better yet, tell GCC where to put its output file using
gcc -o your-executable-name your-source-file.c
Keep in mind that before Linux systems will let you run the file, you may need to set its "executable bit":
chmod +x your-executable-name
Also remember that on Linux, the extension of the file has very little to do with what it actually is - your executable can be named something, something.out, or even something.exe, and as long as it's produced by GCC and you do chmod +x on the file, you can run it as a Linux executable.
To create an executable called myprog, you can call gcc like this:
gcc -c -o myprog something.c
You could also just rename the *.out file gcc generates to the desired name.
That is the executable. If you don't like a.out, you can pass an -o flag to the compiler. If the executable isn't marked with an executable bit, you need to do so yourself:
chmod u+x ./a.out
./a.out