New and need just a few pointers C++ in OSX

What's not working is you're in C, not C++ on the Mac. stdio.h & printf are C, iostream & cout are C++.

When you create a project in Xcode, make sure you change the type from C to C++.

 

I compiled it here without problems in the terminal, so you have probably chosen the wrong language in Xcode. You will get an error if you don't use 'int main' and 'return 0' BTW, so your example can't be that standard.

 

Does your C++ source file have a ".cpp" extension? If not, then that is your problem.

 

Added the int and the return, but it worked here.

 

Two points:
1. When you get errors, post the actual error text.
2. When you use the command line, post your actual commands.

In general, you should also post the exact name of the file (which should also be in any command line), because development tools often use the extension to infer what language to compile it with.

For example, when I put your C++ code into a "hello.cpp" file and compile it with this command:

Code:

gcc hello.cpp

it produces this error message:

Code:

hello.cpp:3: error: '::main' must return 'int'

This message is telling you that the main function must return an int type.


I also pasted your C code, which you said worked, into a "hello.c" file and compiled it as:

Code:

gcc hello.c

which produced this error message:

Code:

hello.c:3: error: stray '\' in program
hello.c:3: error: missing terminating " character
hello.c:3: error: parse error at end of input

I don't know what to conclude from this, except that what you posted isn't actually C. (I could tell without compiling it that it wouldn't work, but it's always best to check what the compiler thinks by actually compiling.)

Maybe you're doing something different when you compile your code that somehow makes it compile. Or maybe the code you posted isn't the actual source code in the file. Never retype source code into posts; always copy and paste it exactly as it is.

 

It's a "Microsoft standard", meaning it's what Visual Studio does. It apparently also appears in a lot of books.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/legality-of-void-main.html

http://users.aber.ac.uk/auj/voidmain.shtml

Find more by googling: c++ void main

 

Love the pun in the thread title.

 

Sorry, couldn't resist

 

Interpreting the hex values as ASCII, it produces:

Code:

:(!:
c99,
sch.

 

I have seen it done before (void main), but I don't think finding it with google will prove it right. Is that your point?

 

Yeah, just end the filename with .cpp and it should work. To compile a file named test.cpp from the command line try this:

Code:

g++ test.cpp -o test

This will create an executable named test. You can omit the -o flag and output name, you will then get a file named a.out that will be your executable.