2020-11-06
Perhaps my Nintendo-themed diversions have given you the impression that I'm not a sober and serious software engineer, but just some sort of script kiddie.
Well, today I intend to prove my mettle, by demonstrating the dark art
of actually compiling code. And rather than mess around with any of
those new kids on the block like Go or Rust, we'll be learning to speak
in the venerable language of C, which is still -- according to the cheat
sheet on learnxinyminutes.com --
the language of modern high-performance computing
.
Unlike our previous examples in Bash and
Python, the code is probably now too complex to
just be echoed straight into a file, so start by opening your
favourite text editor, and then write this:
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
printf("Hello World!\n");
return 0;
}
Save the file as hello.c, and then we'll compile it with gcc (which
once stood for 'GNU C Compiler', but now includes functionality for
various other compiled languages, meaning the acronym has been adjusted
to 'GNU Compiler Collection'). If that's not already on your system,
then you can find installation instructions on the
website.
Then run gcc hello.c -o hello to compile the code in your hello.c
file and output into a ready-to-run hello executable binary.
Check that it runs: ./hello -- and you and the world should be
greeted. And then you can use the time command to compare its speed to
the Bash and Python scripts we wrote previously.