In our previous post we discussed about the history of C and today we have a glance about the usage of C in daily life and environment setup for implementing the code.
- C was initially used for system development work, particularly the programs that make up the OS.
- C produces code that runs nearly as fast as the code written in assembly language.
- Here are some of the examples where C can be used –
- OS
- Language Compilers
- Assemblers
- Text Editors
- Print Spoolers
- Network Drivers
- Modern programs
- Databases
- Language Interpreters
- Utilities
Now, we see about the environment setup for C language:
- If you want to set up your environment locally, you need the following two software tools.
- Text Editor (Windows Notepad)
- The C Compiler (GNU C/C++ Compiler)
- Here, we do not use turbo C compiler as so many schools and colleges are using. Here we go in a bit professional manner.
- It will be very easy to install the compiler.
- To install GCC on Windows, you need to install MinGW. To install MinGW, go to the MinGW homepage www.mingw.org and go to the MinGW download page.
- Download the latest version of MinGW installation program, which should be named MinGW-<version>.exe.
- While installing MinGW, at a minimum, you must install gcc-core, gcc-g++, binutils and the MinGW runtime, but you may install more as per your requirement.
- Add the bin sub directory of your MinGW installation to your PATH environment variable, so that you can specify these tools on the command line by their simple names.
- After the installation, you will be able to run gcc, g++, ar, ranlib, dlltool, and several other GNU tools from the Windows command line.
In our next post in C Programming, we will discuss about writing the code and implementing it in our local system.
Coding Made Easy!! 