Thread: Pelles C

I found that if you work with Pelles C, and you initialize a variable within a switch statement, Pelles signals an error (and blocks you from further working) and you will not be unable to find out why, unless by sheer chance or insane searching. (I will inoculate this statement by adding: of course the wizards already knew this.)

What's a switch loop?

I can't tell you because I don't know what it is. Were you trying to combine a switch statement and a loop in some way that Pelles C saw as a syntax error? Perhaps an example of what you were trying to do that Pelles C flagged as an error would help.

EDIT:
For combining a switch statement with a loop, the most famous example that comes to mind is Duff's device, though I doubt that was what you were going for since you mentioned initialising a variable.

Originally Posted by laserlight

I can't tell you because I don't know what it is. Were you trying to combine a switch statement and a loop in some way that Pelles C saw as a syntax error? Perhaps an example of what you were trying to do that Pelles C flagged as an error would help.

EDIT:
For combining a switch statement with a loop, the most famous example that comes to mind is Duff's device, though I doubt that was what you were going for since you mentioned initialising a variable.

No no no combinations, loops or whatever, I wrote < within >.

switch (expression)
{
case 1: // some code. If in *that* code one initializes a variable, e.g., char banans[no] then you create an error that is fiendishly hard to find.

Ah. Well, that's easily solved by introducing a code block labelled by the case 1 to avoid issues like control skipping variable initialisation. But I'm curious about the hard to find thing. What was the exact error message?

Originally Posted by zach

However one is generally even directed to lines that have nothing to do with the error at all!

As you may know, the error message line generally refers to where the error was detected, not where the mistake was made, so this in itself is not a surprise. But if you find that other compilers are able to diagnose the mistake more accurately, then it could mean that Pelles C is a relatively poor compiler in this respect, and so you may wish to switch to another compiler until you're proficient in C.

Originally Posted by zach

There was NO error message - simply complete fail of the compilation.

That doesn't sound right. I'd suggest coming up with a small and simple program that demonstrates this, then posting in a Pelles C forum/mailing list to ask for help in getting an error message. If the answer is that the lack of an error message is to be expected, then yes, ditch Pelles C until you are proficient in C.

Originally Posted by zach

Notwithstanding these shortcomings Pelles C has a beautiful interface (visual code processor).

You may be able to configure the Pelles C IDE to work with another compiler. If that's not possible, honestly, there are plenty of beautiful IDEs out there.

Originally Posted by zach

Would you please let me have your advice as to a good C IDE free download that isn't a hell of a job to install?

That depends on your OS. I'm using the cross platform Geany, but it's a lightweight IDE such that I mainly use it as an editor and compile on the command line. Code Blocks, also cross platform, seems okay for a full IDE and has a package that includes gcc for Windows. Visual Studio Code is another cross platform editor that is practically a lightweight IDE, but configuring it for C might take a bit of work because the extension doesn't seem fully fledged... but then it does have a nice visual interface.

Roemccarr: Hi, thank you for responding. I didn't want to switch IDEs before finishing my current project. Which I have now done, with the excellent help of you all. I will now try code blocks.