Overview

In this tutorial, we will learn the steps involved to compile and run a C Program from the command line on a Linux machine.

Steps to install GNU C/C++ compiler:

https://www.testingdocs.com/install-gcc-c-compiler-on-opensuse/

C Program

Create a hello.c file. We can use the file manager to create the file.

To create a file from the Command-line:

$ touch hello.c

or

$ vi hello.c

Open the C source code file in the text editor like vi, emacs, gedit, Kate, etc based on the Linux environment.

Write the C program source code by editing a file.

/******************************************** 
 * File:hello.c
 * Sample C Program on Linux 
 * Compile and Run from command line demo.
 * C Tutorials - www.TestingDocs.com
 ********************************************/
// header files
#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>

// main function
int main()
{
 printf("Hello World! \n"); // print Hello message
 exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

Compile

Let’s compile the C program. The gcc compiler produces an executable output file called a.out.

$ gcc hello.c

a.out is the default output executable file created when no output name is specified. We can specify the output file name with -o switch

$ gcc hello.c -o hello

Run a C Program

Let’s run the C program with the default a.out executable output file.

$ ./a.out

To run the output file, for example, hello:

$ ./hello

This should print the Hello World! message to the terminal screen.

That’s it.