The C Programming Language

C has the power of assembly language and the convenience of … assembly language. -- Dennis Ritchie

Mac already has gcc (the compiler we need for C) and debugging tools installed for C so we just need to setup the IDE.

Configure your IDE

tip

While you can probably survive your C class without touching Terminal, we recommend using it! It not only gives you a better understanding of how a computer program is created, but also prepares you for your further modules, which almost certainly will require familiarity with the shell.

VS Code

Let's use VS Code to create a simple C program!

1. Open VS Code and create an empty file called main.c. This will be our C code source file. Such files have the .c extension!

2. Paste the following snippet and save the file:

   #include <stdio.h>
   
   int main() {
       printf("Hello, World!\n");
       return 0;
   }

3. Now, you need to compile your code. Let's see how we can do it from Terminal. Open Terminal in the same directory as the main.c file and run the following command: bash gcc -o main_executable main.c This command will invoke gcc - compiler of the C code, compile the file called main.c and output a binary file named main_executable.

4. To run your program, simply type:

   ./main_executable

   which should produce

   > Hello, World!

Well done, Terminal is for Turbo cool people! 🎉 🥳

JetBrains CLion

Installation

1. Open the Jetbrains Toolbox and install CLion.

2. Press New Project, select C executable from the new project screen with any language standard. A simple Hello World program should open and if you click the play symbol at the top right it will compile and execute in a terminal at the bottom of the screen.

    #include <stdio.h>
   
    int main() {
        printf("Hello, World!\n");
        return 0;
    }

Additional Notes

1. CLion uses CMake to configure running your project. While others are worrying about linking new files to their project you can simply add it to the add_executable section (as shown with new_file.c below).

   cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.16)
   project(untitled C)
   
   set(CMAKE_C_STANDARD 99)
   
   add_executable(untitled main.c new_file.c)

2. If you ever need to pipe something from C to another program (such as a turtle program) then you can compile your application with CLion (hammer icon) and then run your program in terminal with a pipe operator.

   > .\your_program | turtle

3. If you ever need to access gcc directly then you can access it via your terminal.