Hi, I installed Ubuntu a couple of weeks ago and am still getting used to the whole environment. I was trying to compile this C program, which I'm pretty sure is bug-less:

// basic file operations
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;

int main () {
ofstream myfile;
myfile.open ("example.txt");
myfile << "Writing this to a file.\n";
myfile.close();
return 0;
}

but when I try to compile it with
gcc example.c

I get:
example.c:2:20: error: iostream: No such file or directory
example.c:3:19: error: fstream: No such file or directory
example.c:4: error: expected ‘=’, ‘,’, ‘;’, ‘asm’ or ‘__attribute__’ before ‘namespace’
example.c: In function ‘main’:
example.c:7: error: ‘ofstream’ undeclared (first use in this function)
example.c:7: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
example.c:7: error: for each function it appears in.)
example.c:7: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘myfile’
example.c:8: error: ‘myfile’ undeclared (first use in this function)

I included the two necessary packages so I don't know what it's complaining about... am I missing something in my compile instruction?

First of all, you named it example.c and not cpp (for C++) and you are using the codestyle for C++ with streams.

Be sure to use g++ instead of gcc to compile this program... it should work.

Hello,

Now, it's been a while since I did any C/C++ programming, but I typed your program in, and got the same message that you did. I then switched the name to "example.cpp" and used
> g++ example.cpp

This got a clean compile.

Best of luck!

great problem solved thanks.

Wouldn't

get rid of your source file?

Of course not. It will compile example.cpp, put the resulting executable in a file named a.out, and leave the source file unchanged.

If you want to have gcc/g++ output the final ELF binary that you can redistribute, use the -o switch.

e.g.

That will compile your example.cpp into the program "example". You can then test it by typing:

in the same folder. Note: you need the ./ to tell Linux to look in the CURRENT directory for the program. Without it, it will look in your PATH, e.g. /bin, /usr/bin, etc.