16-311 Introduction to Robotics

CRASH COURSE IN COMPILING/DEBUGGING IN THE CLUSTERS
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1. get a SSH client
   • some free ones are SSH and PuTTY. SSH makes it easy to transfer files to and from your computer to your andrew space by giving you a pretty graphical interface to use. SSH is on either most or all of the CMU cluster machines, and it's on ALL of the MechE cluster computers.
2. write your source code
   • you can do this using a text editor like PICO or EMACS, which runs on andrew servers. If you're not comfortable with this, you can always write the file in any text editor (i.e., notepad) and then send it over to your andrew space.
3. compile
   • the easiest way to compile on andrew is to use gcc. At the prompt, type:
     
     gcc -o (name of your desired executable file) (name of your source file)"
     
     if you just type in "gcc (name of input file)", the gcc will name your executable "a.out". Odds are, your program won't compile the first time you try, but gcc will provide you with a lot of information (line number, what kind of error, etc...). ERRORS will prevent gcc from compiling, WARNINGS will not stop gcc from compiling. You can get extra debugging info by typing "-Wall" as the last argument in the line telling gcc to compile.
     
     example: gcc -o myprogram myprog.c -Wall
     
     will try to compile the source file "myprog.c" to create the executable "myprogram"
4. more debugging
   • even when your program compiles, it may still not work right. You can run your program on andrew by typing
     
     "./(name of program)"
     
     so, if we use my above example of the program "myprogram", you'd type "./myprogram". This will run your code.