Current Standard C Compiler?

Question

I wanted to know what is the current standard C compiler being used by companies. I know of the following compilers and don't understand which one to use for learning purposes.

1. Turbo C
2. Borland C
3. GCC
4. DJGPP

I am learning C right now and referring to the K&R book.

Can anyone please guide me to which compiler to use?

Answer 1

GCC is going to have the best support of the choices you've listed for the simple reason that it comes standard in GNU and is the target of Linux. It's very unlikely any organization would use the other three beyond possibly supporting some horrible legacy application.

Other C compilers you might look into include:

• Clang: an up-and-comer, particularly for BSD and Mac OS X
• Visual Studio Express: for Windows programming
• Intel Compiler Suite: very high performance; costs money
• Portland Group: another high-performance commercial compiler; used typically for supercomputers
• PathScale: yet another commercial high-performance compiler

Answer 2

GCC would be the standard, best supported and fastest open source compiler used by most (sane) people.

Answer 3

If you are starting to learn the language, Clang's much better diagnostics will help you.

To make your (job) applications tools section look better, GCC (and maybe Visual Studio) are good to have knowledge of.

Answer 4

Depends on the platform you are using and planning to learn on or will do future development.

On Windows you can use Visual Studio Express C++ which supports standard ANSI C usage. Option two is Cygwin which is a library and tool set that replicates much of what you would use on Linux or other Unix style OS's ( it uses GCC ).

On the Mac you would want XCode which is the standard development tools including C compiler ( based on GCC ).

On many Unix type systems it will be cc or gcc depending on the OS vendor.

If you have the money some of the paid compilers like the Intel one are exceptional but likely won't be much help in learning the programming craft at this point.

Answer 5

In my opinion GCC is your best bet, it's updated frequently and it's used on many platforms (OSX, Linux and so forth).

Answer 6

GCC (which I use in those rare moments when I use C) or ICC (Intel C Compiler), though ICC is known for making code that runs slowly on AMD processors.

Answer 7

If you use LINUX operating system GCC is the best compiler. You can separate each compiler steps like preprocessing , assembler , linker separately in GCC compiler using some command line options. You can analyze step by step of compilation of your C source code easily. I suggest to go for "GNU C COMPILER(GCC)". You can use "CC" command, its nothing but a symbolic link to GCC.

Answer 8

I can recommend OpenWatcom which was once used to develop Netware. Only supports IA-32 but does it well. Contains a basic IDE and a basic but competent profiler. Something for the real programmer :)

Then there is Pelles C which supports x86-64. It has a basic VC-like IDE but few support programs.

I like these two because the compilers are competent and you get going quickly without having to pore over manuals and wondering what the options mean.

Answer 9

If you are on windows use MinGW or like most have suggested ggo with GCC on Linux

Though ofcourse since it's commandline so you might find Dev-C++ and/or Code::Blocks, Eclipse CDT etc which are IDEs useful for you to make your job simpler.

There is no standard and each compiler and it's libraries differ from one another.

Answer 10

gcc is best and free. GO FOR GNU!