Linux Program Extention?

[[SomeGuy]]

Hey, if I wanted to compile something for Linux with g++ and I used -o, what should I name the file? Just the name of the program? Basically, I want to have it so I don't have to type "./a.out" to run my program, and instead, type "program"

[Ynot]

File extensions under *nix don't mean anything They are intended for humans only, and have no bearing on how the machine views the file binary executables usually don't have an extension g++ -o my_program my_program.cpp Run the binary by typing ./my_program

[starry eyes]

For linux executables, I think the executable file needs to have it's executable "x" bits set in it's file permissions. You can find that out with a "ls -l", and set it (if it needs setting) using chmod. You also need to make sure the file's location is in your executable path.

[Ynot]

For linux executables, I think the executable file needs to have it's executable "x" bits set in it's file permissions. You can find that out with a "ls -l", and set it (if it needs setting) using chmod. You also need to make sure the file's location is in your executable path. the compiler will do this automatically

[[SomeGuy]]

File extensions under *nix don't mean anything They are intended for humans only, and have no bearing on how the machine views the file binary executables usually don't have an extension g++ -o my_program my_program.cpp Run the binary by typing ./my_program Well, ls is a program, and so is Firefox, but I only have to type "ls" or "firefox" for it to run...how does that work?

[Ynot]

the location of these programs is in your path variable When asked to execute a program, the shell needs to know where the program is you can do this in 3 ways Give the absolute path to the binary /bin/ls /usr/bin/firefox /home/user/program Give a relative path (relative to the current directory) ./program - run "program" located in the current directory Most "installed" programs, however, are located in special locations When asked to execute a program with no location information, the shell will look through these special locations in order to find the program These special locations are stored in the PATH variable do echo $PATH If you want to be able to execute locally build programs without specifying their location, you need to add an additional directory to the path mkdir ~/bin compile all your programs into ~/bin, and you can just type the program name

[[SomeGuy]]

Oh, okay. Noob question, how do you add to the PATH variable?

[Ynot]

If you make a bin directory in your home directory, you don't actually need to do anything One thing Debian (and it's derivatives) do is look for a bin directory in your home directory, and add it to the path automatically see ~/.profile # set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH" fi Btw, when looking through the path variable for a program's location, the shell will take the first one it comes across So, your path variable will look like /home/user/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games The search goes in order, left to right so if you had a program called "foo" in /home/user/bin, and another (different) program called "foo" in /usr/local/bin typing "foo" would execute the one in /home/user/bin This means you can easily override programs with altered local versions, if you wish make a program called "ls" in your ~/bin dir, and it'll always override the system installed ls command, unless you specify the absolute path of ls

[dsr]

Just to add to what Ynot said, you can check your current PATH variable by typing `echo $PATH' (without the quotes) at a shell prompt, and you can create your own PATH by adding something like export PATH='/bin:/usr/local/bin:$HOME/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/sbin' to your ~/.bashrc if you use bash. You could also add it to ~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile (they function identically) if you use a login shell. Or just add it to ~/.bashrc and then source ~/.bashrc in ~/.bash_profile like so: # contents of ~/.bash_profile . $HOME/.bashrc If you don't use bash, the syntax of exporting the PATH variable might be slightly different and the file names will be different.