How come GCC compiler isn't working in Terminal?

Question

Level 1

13 points

How come GCC compiler isn't working in Terminal?

Hello,

Whenever I try to compile my C code (just a simple helloworld.c) via Terminal I get the following error:

-bash: gcc: command not found

I found some information using Google and I did install Xcode. When I browse to usr/bin the files cc and gcc link to gcc-4.2. So everything seems to be right except for one thing: it doesn't work.

Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong? I guess it's something simple but I can't put my finger on it.

Thanks in advance,

svdv22

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7), I'm running Xcode 3.2.5

Posted on May 17, 2011 5:48 AM

Reply

Answer 1

May 17, 2011 6:15 AM in response to svdv22

is /usr/bin in your path? What if you run /usr/bin/gcc does that work?

Reply

Answer 2

svdv22 Author

Level 1

13 points

May 17, 2011 7:42 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

Thank you for your reply.

I'm not too much into Terminal (as a matter of fact, used it for the first time right now) so what I tried is this:

Using "cd /developer/usr/bin/" to open /usr/bin/gcc as a folder

result: "Not a directory" (which is correct; it isn't).

/usr/bin/ is a directory. So I opened that in the terminal and tried to ran 'gcc'

result: "No application knows how to open /Developer/usr/bin/gcc."

I get the same message when I try to open "gcc-4.2".

Is this what you wanted me to try? Or did I misunderstand you?

Reply

Answer 3

May 17, 2011 7:49 AM in response to svdv22

If you enter

/usr/bin/gcc helloworld.c

You should get an executable named a.out

If you did

/usr/bin/gcc -o helloworld -ansi helloworld.c
you wold get an executable called helloworld
If you add the directory /usr/bin to your default PATH,
you would not need to append that to the command

Reply

Answer 4

May 17, 2011 8:29 AM in response to svdv22

I meant for you to enter the command at the terminal prompt. SO:

% /usr/bin/gcc

should return

And if you run it as Michael wrote you should get the executable file

The complete sequence:

Reply

Answer 5

etresoft

Level 8

46,312 points

May 17, 2011 10:48 AM in response to svdv22

svdv22 wrote:

Using "cd /developer/usr/bin/" to open /usr/bin/gcc as a folder

result: "Not a directory" (which is correct; it isn't).

What, exactly, are you typing on the command line. When you deal with the command line, you must be absolutely precise.

For example, MacOS X, by default, uses a case insensitive file system. If you do something like:

pele:~ jdaniel$ cd /developer/usr/bin

pele:bin jdaniel$

it will work just fine, even though there is no "/developer" directory. There is "/Developer" and that is what it should use.

If you try to move into a truly non-existent directory, you should get a different error message:

pele:bin jdaniel$ cd /developer/usr/bin2

-bash: cd: /developer/usr/bin2: No such file or directory

Did you do anything non-default when you installed MacOS X? Did you do anything non-default when you installed Xcode?

You should be able to run the following from any directory. If you can't something is wrong.

pele:tmp jdaniel$ gcc --version

i686-apple-darwin10-llvm-gcc-4.2 (GCC) 4.2.1 (yada, yada, yada)

Reply

Answer 6

svdv22 Author

Level 1

13 points

May 17, 2011 11:56 PM in response to svdv22

Well something is definitely wrong. I can't recall installing anything different than the default options. When I was at home (same os and xcode) and I ran gcc --version I got a reply like Etresoft said. When I try the same on this computer I get nothing, I get: -bash: gcc: command not found.

I get the feeling I didn't install something the way it should, what do you think? 😉

Reply