If you want to debug your program using gdb, the GNU debugger, or LLDB, you must use the -g flag when you compile: When your program compiles successfully, you can run it by typing the executable name at the command prompt:

If the compiler complains that you have made a mistake or two, go back to fix them, and then try again.

The -o flag allows you to give the compiler a name for your final executable. If your source code file is named M圜Program.c, you can compile it by typing the following at the command prompt:

When the installation is finished, you may close Xcode.

Finally, click the Install button for Command Line Tools.

When the Preferences panel opens, click the Downloads tab and then click on Components.

The command line tools are not installed on your system and you must use Xcode to install them. Your command line tools are already installed. The first step is to check whether the command line tools are installed on your system. You can get the current version of Xcode and the Developer tools from the OS X App Store (they’re free). Mac OS X comes with both vi and emacs, or you can use a different editor if you have one. If you are coming from another Unix environment, and you are used to xterms, you may prefer to download and use iTerm, an OS X native terminal application that behaves similarly to an xterm ( ). You can use the Terminal app ( /Applications/Utilities/Terminal) that comes with Mac OS X. To compile from the command line, you will need: You can find more information on Clang, LLDB, and the LLVM project on the LLVM website. The LLVM project also includes LLDB, a new debugger. Apple has announced that llvm-gcc-4.2 is “frozen” (no new features or bug fixes) as of Xcode 4.4 and will be removed in a future version of Xcode.

Certain newer features of Objective-C, such as automatic reference counting (ARC), are available only by using the Clang compiler.Ĭlang is the default compiler in the current version of Xcode.

Clang provides much more informative error messages when you make a mistake.

The Clang compiler has many advantages over llvm-gcc-4.2: Note that Apple refers to the Clang compiler as “LLVM Compiler N,” where N is the current version number-4.0 as of Xcode 4.4. The current compiler is the Clang compiler, which combines a new unified parser for C, Objective C, C++, and Objective C++ with the LLVM code generator and optimizer. In the first part of the transition Apple used a compiler called llvm-gcc-4.2 that combined the front end from gcc 4.2 with the LLVM code generator and optimizer.

LLVM is not a single compiler it is a set of modules that can be used to build compilers, debuggers, and related tools. However, in the past several years they have transitioned to using compilers from the open-source LLVM (Low Level Virtual Machine) project. Historically, Apple has used the open-source GNU compiler, gcc, for building iOS and OS X programs.

How to compile c++ on mac