How can I execute a.exe using the Cygwin shell?
I created a C file in Eclipse on Windows and then used Cygwin to navigate to the directory. I called gcc on the C source file and a.exe was produced. I would like to run a.exe.
How do I execute a file in Cygwin?
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9 Answers
you should just be able to call it by typing in the file name. You may have to call ./a.exe as the current directory is usually not on the path for security reasons.
To execute a file in the current directory, the syntax to use is: ./foo
As mentioned by allain, ./a.exe is the correct way to execute a.exe in the working directory using Cygwin.
Note: You may wish to use the -o parameter to cc to specify your own output filename. An example of this would be: cc helloworld.c -o helloworld.exe.
Thomas wrote:
Apparently, gcc doesn't behave like the one described in The C Programming language
It does in general. For your program to run on Windows it needs to end in .exe, "the C Programming language" was not written with Windows programmers in mind. As you've seen, cygwin emulates many, but not all, features of a POSIX environment.
Apparently, gcc doesn't behave like the one described in The C Programming language, where it says that the command cc helloworld.c produces a file called a.out which can be run by typing a.out on the prompt.
A Unix hasn't behaved in that way by default (so you can just write the executable name without ./ at the front) in a long time. It's called a.exe, because else Windows won't execute it, as it gets file types from the extension.
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