C Get Started

Get Started With C

To start using C, you need two things:

  • A text editor, like Notepad, to write C code
  • A compiler, like GCC, to translate the C code into a language that the computer will understand

There are many text editors and compilers to choose from. In this tutorial, we will use an IDE (see below).

C Install IDE

An IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is used to edit AND compile the code.

Popular IDE's include Code::Blocks, Eclipse, and Visual Studio. These are all free, and they can be used to both edit and debug C code.

Note: Web-based IDE's can work as well, but functionality is limited.

We will use Code::Blocks in our tutorial, which we believe is a good place to start.

You can find the latest version of Codeblocks at http://www.codeblocks.org/. Download the mingw-setup.exe file, which will install the text editor with a compiler.

C Quickstart

Let's create our first C file.

Open Codeblocks and go to File > New > Empty File.

Write the following C code and save the file as demo.c (File > Save File as):

demo.c

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
  printf("Hello World!");
  return 0;
}

Don't worry if you don't understand the code above - we will discuss it in detail in later chapters. For now, focus on how to run the code.

In Codeblocks, it should look like this:

Then, go to Build > Build and Run to run (execute) the program. The result will look something to this:

Hello World!

Process returned 0 (0x0) execution time : 0.011 s

Press any key to continue.

Congratulations! You have now written and executed your first C program.

demo.c

Code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
  printf("Hello World!");
  return 0;
}

Result:
 
Hello World!