itepifanio / cpplab

An empty c++ project (setup for makefile, doctest, g++, gdb, and vscode)

C++ Makefile Project

The Makefile in this directory can be used to build and run C++ projects that include a main-driver program as well as doctests that should be run. It also defines recipes for running, testing, and debugging. This document describes how to use the makefile as well as pointers to other relevant development tools. (Feel free to report any issues you find with the instructions in this file.)

Quick Start

1. Setup a Linux environment. If you are on Windows 10, I recommend the WSL. An alternative linux environment is freely available online. In order to login, you need to first get a (free) GitHub account.
2. From the Linux terminal, install the compiler, debugger, git, and zip. E.g.:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential gdb git zip

3. Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/teichert/cpplab.git Lab1
cd Lab1

4. Try some of the make targets:

make test
make run
make zip

5. Edit the code: I recommend Visual Studio Code which is a nice, lightweight, open-source, programming environment that is available on Windows, Linux, and Mac. Once you have installed it, open a linux commandline and run the program by typing code. From the File menu, select "Open Folder" and navigate to the folder containing this README.md file. This folder also has a hidden folder called .vscode which tells VSCode what to do when you hit the green play button to run project. In particular, it defines that if you want to run the main driver, it should first run make to build the executable, and then run it with the debugger. It also tells VSCode to run make before debugging the test driver.

Project Structure

The Makefile will expect your .cpp and .h files to be in certain places so that it can figure out file dependencies, and compile and link files as efficiently as possible. Source .cpp files will be compiled into .o files and then linked together as appropriate. Including .h files introduces dependencies which will be automatically detected. The subdirectories of the project are explained below:

• bin/: generated executables will be put here (i.e. the executable main program and the test runner)
• build/: intermediate compiled object files will go here (one for each .cpp file)
• drivers/: source code for the test driver, test-driver.cpp (which doesn't change from project to project), and your main program, main-driver.cpp, should go here.
• include/: any non-standard header files, including your own .h files should go here
• src/: all of your .cpp files (other than your test case files and your two driver files) should go here
• test/: all of your test case .cpp files should go here

Makefile Targets

As mentioned above, if you use VSCode, then using the built-in run mechanism will make use of the makefile indirectly. In addition, the makefile defines several targets that you can run from the commandline.

Run make from the linux commandline while in the same directory as this README.md file (which is also where the Makefile is). For example, to run the recipe for test you would enter make test from the commandline. Note: the online ide.cs50.io shell by default recompiles from scratch, so to make compilation faster, use command make in place of make when using the CS50 IDE. The Makefile defines recipes for the following targets:

• all (this is the default is you just type make): build the main driver and test driver
• test: build and run tests
• run: build and run main driver program
• clean: remove all generated files
• zip: remove generated files and add everything else to a .zip file
• run-debug50: prepare and run the debugger on the main driver for the cs50 ide
• test-debug50: prepare and run the debugger on the test driver for the cs50 ide
• run-debug: run the main driver in a command-line debugger called gdb
• run-debug: run the test driver in gdb