[rankbeginner]

Hello and thanks in advance...
It will be obvious from my questions that I'm taking a C++
course for the first time, and the only thing I've ever programmed is
my VCR.

I have a Windows computer running XP Pro.

Question 1:
I had thought that I could type the C++ code in a text editor, and
then use a C++ compiler to get an .exe program.

Well, I looked around and I had trouble finding a compiler.
Is this the way it's done, and if yes, what's a good compiler to use?

Question 2:
In order to get something to compile with, I bought an academic
version of Microsoft Visual C++.net
Surprisingly, I couldn't find a compiler in that whole large thing.

This morning I downloaded the MS Visual C++ Toolkit (free from MS
Website).
How is this toolkit used? .. . Running it, it looks like a DOS screen.
At the prompt, do I simply type in the name of the file to be compiled?

Thanks very much!

[Shadow2531]

Use GCC 3.3.3 Mingw from www.mingw.org.

If you don't feel like figuring out how to download and setup everything, you can do STL's distro from www.nuwen.net

http://www.nuwen.net/files/mingw.zip

It has almost everything setup for you.

Still keep your c++ toolkit.

For MS's toolkit use

cl /EHsc file.cpp -o file

cl /? to see what optimizations you can use.

For mingw use

g++ -Wall -W file.cpp -o file

or to get a smaller file size

g++ -Wall -W file.cpp -o file -s && upx -qqq --best file.exe

You do these at the command line.

example hello.cpp

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main() {
    cout << endl << "Hello World!" << endl;
}

Once hello.exe is created, don't double-click it to load it. Type hello at the command line to load it.

[Nefesis]

i realize this has nothing to do with this thread except for the title. my question is: in visual c++ 6.0, how do you recieve the input from an edit box and from there open another dialog. for example, if i were to enter "about" in the edit box, how would i write the code so that it takes my input and decides which dialog to open. wouldn't you use the if statements (i.e.
if (cin == about)
{
dlgAbout.DoModal();
} ) to chose which dialog to open, but how would you get the computer/program to recognize what the input was from the edit box?

[Shadow2531]

I don't use Visuall c++ and also don't know if general, but these links may help.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en..._MFC_CEdit.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...windowtext.asp

http://www.google.com/search?q=c%2B%...utf-8&oe=utf-8

[dmneoblade]

If you installed the Microsoft Visual C++ .net program already (big investment), go to your start menu, find something starting with "Microsoft Visual" in your start menu, and click the "infinity symbol" looking icon. This will bring up the IDE (Integrated Development Environment). This lets you make programs easily by
a> Providing a text editor that colors your code
b> Telling you where errors are
c> compling your program
d> etc...

For help on how to do all that, open the program and press F1. And I recommend buying a beginning c++ book (NOT C++ for Dummies) for reference. But, make sure you can understand at least the first few pages of the book before bringing it to the counter.

[rankbeginner]

Thanks very much! ... I did just buy the Visual C++ -- I'm a student, and the EDU version costs around 70 bucks. I thought that my computer would explode when loading all those gigabytes, but it survived. ... I will play around with this this week. I would like to find a C++ book that contains annotated examples: the program code, then a line-by-line explanation. --RB

[Nefesis]

ok, thanks a lot. i will look there. it'l probably answer most of the questions i have in the future.