C is a general-purpose programming language that was first developed in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs. C was created as an evolution of the B programming language, with the goal of creating a language that was both powerful and easy to use, and that could be used for a wide variety of applications.
One of the key features of C is its portability. C code can be compiled to run on a variety of different hardware platforms, making it a popular choice for systems programming, embedded systems development, and other low-level programming tasks.
There are different installation procedures of the compiler for different operating systems.
Here's how to install a C compiler on some of the most popular operating systems:
Windows
Download the installer for the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) from the MinGW website: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/
Run the installer and follow the prompts to install GCC on your computer.
After installation is complete, open the Command Prompt or PowerShell and type gcc -v to verify that the compiler is installed and working.
macOS
Install Xcode from the Mac App Store.
Open the Terminal app and type gcc -v to verify that the compiler is installed and working.
Linux
Open the terminal and type sudo apt-get install build-essential to install the GCC compiler on Ubuntu or other Debian-based Linux distributions.
Type gcc -v to verify that the compiler is installed and working.
Once you've installed the compiler, you can use a text editor or an integrated development environment (IDE) to write C code. Save your code with a .c extension and then use the compiler to compile your code into an executable file. You can then run the executable file to execute your program.
Here's a simple "Hello, World!" program in C:
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
printf("Hello, World!\n");
return 0;
}Output
