Question

I am learning C and wish to write the program using a text editor on my Mac (running OS X v10.7 (Lion)).

I write the .c file, and compile it using gcc filename.c – which creates executable file called a.out. However, when I type a.out or /a.out, I get the following messages:

-bash: a.out: command not foundor-bash: /a.out:
No such file or directory

I have successfully compiled and ran C programs on Linux systems before using this same method. What am I doing wrong on my Mac?

Answer 1

You need to add a dot to indicate that the executable is in the current directory, as the current directory is not in the path:

./a.out