CSC448: Overview: Installing MinGW [14/133]

The compiler produces assembly language output. An assembler is used to produce object files, and a linker is used to produce executable files.

It is also useful to have:

• a C compiler to produce assembly language examples.
• a debugger to debug the result of executing our compiler's output.

We use MinGW: Minimalist GNU For Windows : free; small download; fast; powerful but unfriendly debugger.

Why MinGW?

• MS Visual Studio and MASM: reasonable graphical debugger; not everyone has MS Visual Studio (let alone the same version); MS Windows only; MASM can be downloaded for free but is awkward to install.
• Cygwin : free; lots of tools; uses an emulation layer; large download; slow under Win9x; powerful but unfriendly debugger.
• NASM: The Netwide Assembler : free; small download; fast; requires separate compiler, linker, and debugger.

Install MinGW:

• Download MinGW-3.1.0-1.exe from the SourceForge.net MinGW project file list .
• Run MinGW-3.1.0-1.exe and install to c:\mingw (other directories will not work).
• Add c:\mingw\bin to the PATH environmental variable (see setup.bat in the examples directory).

To verify the installation, try compiling and running a hello world C program:

gcc -o build\hello.exe src\hello.c
build\hello.exe
        

For example:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
  printf ("Hello World!\n");
  return 0;
}