Using Cygwin to Compile a C program Execution error

Question

I m enrolled in a masters computer science course  The course is using C and the instructor wants us to use Cygwin to compile programs if we are using windows    I ve downloaded and installed Cygwin and I ve ensured that I ve installed the GCC compiler    But I don t know where to go from here  I need to compile a single source file that has a basic include    include  lt stdio h gt     Lets assume the file is on my desktop  it is not  but for the sake of argument   How do I navigate to the desktop from the bash shell  I assume once I ve navigated to the correct location in bash  I simply execute   gcc myProgram c -o myProgram   Update  Following different instructions posted below  I was able to compile the program  I thank you for that  But when I execute the resulting binary I get the following  How can I compile or execute this program so I don t get the error   Again  thank you   This application has failed to start because cygwin1 dll was not found  Re-installing the application may fix this problem

User · Answer

This file  cygwin1 dll  is cygwin dependency similar to qt dependency you must copy this file and similar files that appear in such messages error  from  cygwin bin  to folder of the your program  Also this is necessary to run in another computer that have NOT cygwin

User · Answer

Look for  that is  cd to    cygdrive c    that will usually be your C      Also look at Using Cygwin  the Lifehacker introduction  June 2006  and  this biomed page at PhysioNet

User · Answer

You might be better off editing a file inside of cygwin shell   Normally it has default user directory when you start it up   You can edit a file from the shell doing something like  vi somefile c  or  emacs somefile c   That s assuming vi or emacs are installed in cygwin   If you want to file on your desktop  you ll have to go to a path similar  on XP  to   cygwindrive c Documents  and  Settings Frank Desktop   If memory serves correctly    Just cd to that path  and run your command on the file

User · Answer

Just to summarize  here are some commands that navigate to a directory and compile code using Cygwin and Windows Vista    Start a Cygwin shell  At the prompt  use cd to change to the appropriate directory      cd  cygdrive c Users nate Desktop Use ls to list the files in the directory     ls  prog c Use the gcc command to compile a file in this directory     gcc prog c -o prog If you don t see any errors  you should be able to run the resulting program       prog   Update   For the  Cygwin1 dll not found  error  I like Nik s answer   You might also check out this related post about cygwin1 dll not found  which suggests adding c  cygwin bin  to your Windows PATH     There are instructions on how to change the Windows PATH variable for Windows XP  and on Vista I think it s similar    Go to Control Panel -  System Select Advanced System Settings Click on the Advanced tab Click on Environment Variables Under System Variables  find the Path entry and click Edit Add c  cygwin bin to the list  making sure to separate it from any previous items with a semicolon

User · Answer

Regarding the cygwin1 dll not found error  a solution I have used for at least 8 years is to add the Cygwin bin directories to the end of my  PATH  in My Computer -  Properties -  Advanced -  Environment Variables  I add them to the end of the path so in my normal work  they are searched last  minimizing the possibility of conflicts  in fact  I have had no problems with conflicts in all this time    When you invoke the Cygwin Bash Shell  those directories get prepended to the  PATH  so everything works as intended in that environment as well   When not running in Cygwin shell  my  PATH  is   Path c  opt perl bin                  C  opt cygwin bin         C  opt cygwin usr bin         C  opt cygwin usr local bin    This way  for example  ActiveState Perl s perl is found first when I am not in a Cygwin Shell  but the Cygwin perl is found when I am working in the Cygwin Shell

User · Answer

If you are not comfortable with bash  you can continue to work in a standard windows command  i e  DOS  shell   For this to work you must add C  cygwin bin  or your local alternative  to the Windows PATH variable   With this done  you may      1  Open a command  DOS  shell     2  Change the directory to the location of your code  c   then cd path to file      3  gcc myProgram c -o myProgram  As mentioned in nik s response  the  Using Cygwin  documentation is a great place to learn more

User · Answer

Regarding your updated question about the missing cygwin1 dll   From the Cygwin terminal check   ls  usr bin cygwin1 dll   If it is not present  I doubt that   your installation is not properly done   Then  check your path with   echo  PATH   This will give   separated list of paths  It MUST contain  usr bin  If you find that missing add it with   export PATH  usr bin  PATH   Finally     I hope you are using Cygwin from the cygwin terminal  the little green black icon installed with Cygwin   or MinTTY  if you installed that    And  you have not moved the compiled EXE to a different machine which does not have Cygwin installed  if you do that  you will need to carry the cygwin1 dll to that machine -- keep it in the same  folder as the compiled EXE

User · Answer

Cygwin is very cool   You can compile programs from other systems  Linux  for example   and they will work   I m talking communications programs  or web servers  even   Here is one trick   If you are looking at your file in the Windows File Explorer  you can type  cd   in your bash windows  then drag from explorer s address bar into the cygwin window  and the full path will be copied   This works in the Windows command shell as well  by the way     Also   While  cd  cygdrive c  is the formal path  it will also accept  cd c   as a shortcut   You may need to do this before you drag in the rest of the path   The stdio h file should be found automatically  as it would be on a conventional system

User · Answer

Windows path C  src under cygwin becomes  cygdrive c src

User · Answer

Compiling your C program using Cygwin  We will be using the gcc compiler on Cygwin to compile programs    1  Launch Cygwin  2  Change to the directory you created for this class by typing  cd c  windows desktop  3  Compile the program by typing  gcc myProgram c -o myProgram  the command gcc invokes the gcc compiler to compile your C program

User · Answer

when you start in cygwin  you are in your  HOME  like in unix generally  which maps to c  cygwin home  YOURNAME by default  So you could put everything there   You can also access the c  drive from cygwin through  cygdrive c   e g   cygdrive c Documents anb Settings yourname Desktop

User · Answer

If you just do gcc program c -o program -mno-cygwin it will compile just fine and you won t need to add cygwin1 dll to your path and you can just go ahead and distribute your executable to a computer which doesn t have cygwin installed and it will still run  Hope this helps

[c] Using Cygwin to Compile a C program; Execution error

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