I know for my class, I had to install cygwin to get my Netbeans IDE running, but I see options during setup for both g++ and gcc and I am not sure if they are the same thing or not, and where does wingw? is it another compiler, and if so why choose on over the other?
g++ and gcc are the gnu C++ and C compiler respectively. They're really the same compiler with different flags though.
MinGW is "Minimalist Gnu for Windows". It's a port of the gnu compiler to run on Windows.
Cygwin is another port of the gnu compiler (and various other utilities) to Windows. More accurately (IMO, anyway), it's leaving the compiler/programs running on POSIX, and porting a POSIX layer to run on Windows.
As to choosing between them: if you're running Linux, you probably want ot just get a package of gcc/g++ for the distro you're using.
If you're running Windows, it'll depend on your intent. Cygwin works well for porting existing Linux/POSIX code to Windows. If, however, you plan to write code, and just want a compiler, I'd go for MinGW instead.
One other note: the MinGW at MinGW.org hasn't been updated in years. If you decide to go with MinGW, I'd advise getting it from nuwen.net instead (it's updated quite regularly).
gcc will compile: .c/.cpp files as C and C++ respectively.
g++ will compile: .c/.cpp files but they will all be treated as
C++ files.
Also if you use g++ to link the object files it automatically
links in the std C++ libraries (gcc does not do this).
gcc compiling C files has less predefined macros.
For wingw, did you mean mingw? Because MinGW is for compatibility with Windows. MinGW uses GCC/G++, and MinGW is not a compiler, it's basically a stripped version of Cygwin that uses MS libs wherever possible.
Depends upon what you are building;
gcc is for C programs.
g++ is for C++ programs.
I've not heard of wingw.
Related
For C++ development on Linux, if I install clang and use it; it actually uses libstdc++(the g++ lib). What's the use of installing the frontend compiler clang on linux then?
I should be good with gcc/g++ only on a linux machine as that's a complete toolchain!
Note: I'm not an expert in C++.
libstdc++ is a default runtime on your Linux. libc++ is not installed by default. If you link your app to libc++, you have to add it as a runtime dependency.
You are right, gcc/g++ is good for Linux, moreover its diagnostic messages are more clear, thus the compiler is better for beginners. By using clang++, you need to know the C++ standard deeper, otherwise it's difficult to get an error reason.
I have a C++ program which makes use of some C++ standard libraries such as iostream, vector, sstream and so on, and is only about 120 lines of code. By building it on Debian I get a 25KB executable, while when I build it on Windows 11 (both of them with just "g++ main.cpp") I normally get a 3026KB .exe. If instead I type "--shared-libstdc++" alongside g++ on Windows, I get a smaller .exe, merely 290KB.
My question is, why does compiling and linking in a Linux environment automatically do this while on Windows I have to specify it? Is there a drawback to dynamically linking the standard C++ library on Windows that G++ is aware of?
On Windows, I have: gcc version 10.3.0 (tdm64-1)
On Debian, I have: gcc version 11.3.0 (Debian 11.3.0-3)
Are the gcc and g++ compilers installed on a MAC OS X machine different from the ones on Ubuntu (Linux) GNU gcc and g++ compilers?
I am using Eclipse to develop a C++ program and there is toolchain section where it says MacOSX GCC and I was wondering if I need to install another compiler so that the executable would also run on Linux machines.
I am a bit new to the technical details of C++ development so I am sorry if this question does not make sense.
It it very unlikely that binary will execute on both Mac and on Linux. If is pretty likely that a binary will not execute between different distro's of Linux. You can either compile you binary for each OS. Or you can distribute the source code for you application and let you users compile it themselves.
Different versions of libstdc++.so are likely distributed with different OS's and this will cause you problems. A solution that partly works is to statically compile your binary so you are not depending on the target systems installed version of libraries.
MacOS is not Linux, it might have a bit in common with BSD, but definitely not Linux. They do, or can, use different configurations of the same compiler, but the programs are not compatible.
The only way you're going to run the same program on both is if you have something like Wine to provide a compatibility layer.
I'm trying to minimize the resources required to compile and run c++ code with GCC. I downloaded DevC++'s portable version but I'm looking more towards what files do I need to ONLY run gcc via command prompt and compile against all standard libraries. I'm not interested in Windows applications, only command prompt.
Is there an already stripped version of GCC out there? And if not, would anyone be able to lend me a hand
*I know of CygWin, and MinGW already, I'm looking for the bare minimals to using the cpp compiler for GCC. Like Tiny C where the entire functioning compiler and libraries is under 200 kilobytes, I'm looking to emulate that workflow with a cpp compiler.
MinGW
MinGW, a contraction of "Minimalist GNU for Windows", is a minimalist development environment for native Microsoft Windows applications.
Primarily intended for use by developers working on the native MS-Windows platform, [...] MinGW includes:
A port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), including C, C++, ADA and Fortran compilers;
GNU Binutils for Windows (assembler, linker, archive manager)
A graphical and a command-line installer for MinGW and MSYS deployment on MS-Windows
I recently switched back to Windows7 (x64) because of perfomance issues with my graphics card on linux but i miss the abilty to easily compile open source software on Windows. I have a copy of the intel c compiler which is somewhat better than the gnu c compiler and i would like to use it to compile software written for linux.
I've already installed cygwin and managed to compile something. The 'make-install' didn't work though but that's another issue. Now my question is, how can i tell 'make' to use the windows intel compiler?
Most of the configure scripts you'll find in OSS have probably been created by the Autotools. Those should, basically, support the icc. To use it, although you may have GCC installed side-by-side, it would be necessary to set the environment variable CC to the (cygwin) path to Intel's C compiler and CXX to Intel's C++ compiler prior to running configure.
You may run into trouble with software packages that unconditionally set compiler flags that only GCC understands. I have heard, though, that, by now, icc actually implements most of these.
Update
Something similar has been asked before.