How do I "launch" my "Hello World" script written in C?

[asuastrophysics]

Hey everyone,

I'm a complete noob to programming, know nothing about it other than a wiki article here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29) and a few articles the admin staff posted about making effective threads in this section.

(I'm going to sound like an idiot) Just out of curiosity, how do I launch this "Hello World" script written in C for GTK+ ?

#include <gtk/gtk.h>

int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
GtkWidget *window;
GtkWidget *label;

gtk_init (&argc, &argv);

/* create the main, top level, window */
window = gtk_window_new (GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);

/* give it the title */
gtk_window_set_title (GTK_WINDOW (window), "Hello World");

/* Connect the destroy signal of the window to gtk_main_quit
* When the window is about to be destroyed we get a notification and
* stop the main GTK+ loop
*/
g_signal_connect (window, "destroy",
G_CALLBACK (gtk_main_quit), NULL);

/* Create the "Hello, World" label */
label = gtk_label_new ("Hello, World");

/* and insert it into the main window */
gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (window), label);

/* make sure that everything, window and label, are visible */
gtk_widget_show_all (window);

/* start the main loop, and let it rest there until the application is closed */
gtk_main ();

return 0;
}


I tried launching it as:

sh <filename of hello world>

But that didn't seem to work. Can someone help me through my stupidity?

Thanks for any help in advance!!! :D

[jediborger]

Well C is a compiled language so it must first be compiled using some like

gcc myprogram.c -o myprogram
The first arg is the "script" as you referred to it and then a name for the output program then you can execute the program on the command line. Note for GTK and most gui stuff you will need to include some headers which I don't remember what you need off the top of my head. But you should do a bit more reading. If you are looking for an interpreted language check out Python, Perl or Ruby, all of which have GTK bindings.

[asuastrophysics]

Thanks! :popcorn:
I'll try to research which headers I need to compile this.

[jediborger]

Ok so after a little refresher I can help you out with this particular program. Here's the commands:

gcc myprogram.c -o myprogram `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-x11-2.0`
./myprogram
In a nutshell C must be compiled, typically using gcc then you can run it. As I said before the gtk gui kit requires some header files, think of the include line at the top of the c program. So the pkg-config program fetches those for you. You can see all your configured libraries by running:

pkg-config --list-all
But as you said you are new at this. Definitely read more. I have found http://cprogramming.com a good resource with nice tutorials. Also check out the programming section of the Ubuntu Forums, there is a ton of stuff there designed to help out new programmers.

[asuastrophysics]

thanks for your help!