Question

I’m just getting my feet wet in C++ using the Stanford CS 106B lectures available online. The assignments have the students use some custom libraries which are available for download online, although the installation instructions are gone.

While I can do the assignments in Xcode using a pre-built blank project which includes the relevant files and source trees set up, I also have TextMate on hand and thought I’d like to try coding with it, since I liked using it a lot for coding LaTeX. So far so good.

The first program I’m trying to run (a very simple ten-line program) contains an # include "genlib.h" in the first line. I have the genlib.h file, but can’t seem to get either of the following to work:

1. Add the path to the relevant file in TextMate: When I try to add the path to the folder on my desktop (/previouspathinthelist:/Users/me/Desktop/C++\ libraries) where the file lives I get an error: /Users/me/Documents/c++ programs/powertab.cpp:9:20: error: genlib.h: No such file or directory even though the file is right there! (Maybe I should note here that the file to be imported and the program file are in two different folders).
2. Add the file to one of the other paths: I can’t move the files using mv in terminal to usr/bin, usr/sbin, etc. because it says I don’t have the proper permissions.

Is there something I’m doing wrong in setting my path to my folder in Documents? There aren’t any spelling mistakes or anything since the path came straight from get info in the finder. I know this is a programming forum and not a TextMate support forum, but I thought it’d be good to know where people generally put these kinds of files on their systems.

Answer 1

Just put the file in the same directory as your other source files.

#include "filename"

searches the source directory first, whereas

#include <filename>

only searches the include file path.

The reason why /previouspathinthelist:/Users/me/Desktop/C++\ libraries doesn’t work probably has to do with the space in the file name. It is quite possible that a backslash is not the right way to quote the space in the tool you’re using. Many tools from the C/unix tradition deal rather badly with pathnames that contain space (even though the Unix kernel itself has no such problem); often you’ll find that there is no single amount of quoting that will simultaneously satisfy all the tools and subsystems that use some setting. Better to avoid spaces in filenames entirely when you’re doing development.