c compiler
 

i was wandering if there was any good c compilers that are free for linux?

mh, I think you should read more in the manuals for your system. Every Linux-distribution comes with gcc, most distributions install it by default.

Markus

The standard compiler for Linux is GCC (it's free and open-source). It should be in pretty much every distro's package repository.

I thought that most distros don't have any compilers by default.

Hello

@MTK358: thanks, maybe I was wrong.

I helped archie101 in several threads here at LQ, he's using Arch and should not have any problems finding gcc (I don't indeed remember if it is installed by default ;) ).

Markus

It asks you during installation.

The package for all the development tools is called "base-devel". I'd recommend that the OP installs this instead of just GCC individually.

I have it installed but i do not know how to open it up and write a program. i looked on archlinux.org and did not find out how to.

You will have to write a C-program with your favorite text-editor (i.e. vim ;) ) and then compile itwhere myprogram.c is the name of the sourcefile and the name after the -o option is the name of the compiled outputfile. You may look here: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~beechung/ref/gcc-intro.html

Markus

Write a simple c program. Then compile it using gcc -o <progname.o> <progname.c>.
You can also compile it straightaway with gcc <progname>. In this case the compiled binary name would be a.out.
You can then execute the compiled binary using ./<progname.o> or ./<a.out>.
Hope this helps.
PS: AFAIK _all_ distros come with gcc - unless you specifically did not install it. You can check that with 'whereis gcc'.

I think that you are confusing a compiler with an IDE (Integrated Development Environment). A short look at the Arch repositories showed up a lot of IDEs for Arch, just try a few if you want.

i made a file put a simple c program in it saved it and ran gcc -o nameofmyprogram nameofmyprogram.c and it said gcc: error: hello.c: No such file or directory
gcc: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated

if your program is hello.c, you should tryMarkus

and this is my program to anyone who knows c and might find an error with it:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>

int main(void) {

printf("hello");

getch();

}

you should use code-tags for programtext in your posts.

If you delete the line #include <conio.h> and the getch() line it will compile and run.

now it says hello.c:3:10: error: expected ‘=’, ‘,’, ‘;’, ‘asm’ or ‘__attribute__’ before ‘void’

and how do i use code-tags?

You may use the "Go Advanced" button at the bottom of your new post, then you end up in an advanced editor where there is this # character where you can click in order to wrap code-tags around the text.

You may as well use the "quote" button for any post where someone used code-tags and see how it works.

Markus