Concise C++ Programming 01 Applications GNU C++ Download DOS Compile Tutorial

Purpose of this self-study booklet series “Concise C++ Programming 01 Applications” is to present some selected topics of C++ and applications programming tutorials using small length topics (units) suitable to be readable using e-readers such as Amazon.com Kindle Fire.

Using small booklets, we discuss only selected topics in order to provide details of the topic to enhance the understanding. Thus, many illustrative, practical application oriented programming examples are provided for the programmer to read, compile, run, observe the program’s input data/output results, debug, modify, re-compile, re-run and practice until the concepts are clear.

In this booklet, we have presented:
• Introduction to edit, compile process of a C++ program
• Download for free, install and configure the GNU C++ compiler software called MinGW g++
• Edit MinGW g++ path variable
• Creating a C++ program using text editor
• Compiling and Running C++ programs from DOS

Web page information for obtaining the freely downloadable GNU C++ compiler software has been provided.

Detailed steps to download, install and configure GNU C++ compiler (i.e. g++) have been given.

Then the detailed instructions for compiling and running a C++ program from DOS command prompt are given.

In order to ensure g++ compiler environment has been installed correctly:
We will use “g++ -–version” and “gcc -–version” commands from DOS command prompt to determine the installed versions of C++ and C compilers.

Then we will compile and run a simple C++ program using the following activities:

• Create a simple C++ program source file (i.e. a text file) using a text editor
• Compile the source file into an “.exe” file
• Run the “.exe” file to get the results of the program

Many example programming activities have been given by intentionally creating typo errors (i.e. syntax errors) to illustrate the error messages generated by the compiler.

In addition to the regular programming activity examples, some example programs have been given, to illustrate good and bad styles of C++ program indentation and spacing.

As of the writing of this booklet, GNU C++ 4.8.1 version is a freely downloadable compiler that implemented majority of the ISO standard C++11 features.

This tutorial oriented booklet is hoped to help new programmers in installing C++ compiler quickly and start to focus on C++ programming.