Thread: Help working this compiler...

I'm a college computer engineer. I've taken 4 or 5 programming courses, 3 of them were for C++.

Normally, we always used Visual C++ 6 except in some instances we used some kind of unix compiler (./a.out to compile..).

Someone recently purchased Visual C++ .NET for me... so i installed the sucker and gave it a go. I was overwhelmed. There's alot of *stuff* in this.

Do I even need this thing? I figure it's better to use the "newer" program rather than the old one.

I can't even compile a simple cout<<"Hello World!"; program!! I can't find COMPILE, or BUILD, or RUN. How do i run a program?!?!

I know it might be stupid... but i'm really not used to this thing.

Maybe if someone can help me figure out how to compile a simple program... i can move forward.

And if you can explain to me the big differences between 6 and .NET... and maybe even recommend some other compilers i'd be happy to listen.

Thanks.

Have you checked the documentation that comes with it?

when u start .net, click on file then new project. Then select c++ project, and create an empty project. In the source file folder right click add new item and add a c++ file. from there you can go about writing and compiling programs like you did in 6.0

Ok... I made a new blank project, made a new CPP file in the source folder. I'm not sure whether i was supposed to use win32 project or win32 console project. Normally in school... we run things in the "command' window... so should i always use win32 console project? I simple want to write a "hello" program... =)

-------------------------
#include<iostream.h>

int main()
(open brace)
cout << "Hello";

return 0;
(close brace)
----------------------------

why doesn't this work?? It always worked before. I read sotmhing about the iostream.h being changed... is there any way i can still use the old one for simplicity's sake?

And to use the new one... what differences do i need to remember?

I read sotmhing about the iostream.h being changed... is there any way i can still use the old one for simplicity's sake?

Don't use the old one. Use <iostream>.

The code tags that the little popup referred to that caused you to put (open brace) and (close brace) work like this:

[code]
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
std::cout << "Hello World!" << std::endl;
}
[/code]

Which causes the code to look like this:

Code:

#include <iostream>

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

Now use the empty Win32 console application and put in that code. Check the FAQ here to see answers to question like how to use code tags, the difference between iostream.h and iostream, and why the console disappears. For simplicity's sake (in the short run) put "using namespace std;" on its own line under the #include <iostream> and you don't have to add the "std::" everywhere.

thanks jlou... that did it... no errors.

can someone explain what namespace std; does though? can i put other things in front of cout and endl other than "std"? and does namespace only pertain to iostream?

i also still can't find run =) I can BUILD the project... and it builds successfully... but where is the command to run the program so i can see the output?

ahh, thank you.

Originally posted by skim
i also still can't find run =) I can BUILD the project... and it builds successfully... but where is the command to run the program so i can see the output?

You need to learn to read the documentation that comes with your compiler instead of waiting three and a half hours for an answer on a forum. Learning to read the help files will answer not just this simple question, but many other simple questions that you'll have. If you don't start to do this for yourself you're going to find the learning process unnecessarily long and difficult.