Forcing GCC to compile .cpp file as C
Solution 1
The -x
option for gcc
lets you specify the language of all input files following it:
$ gcc -x c your-file-name.cpp
If you only want to special-case that one file, you can use -x none
to shut off the special treatment:
$ gcc -x c your-filename.cpp -x none other-file-name.cpp
(your-filename.cpp
will be compiled as C, while other-file-name.cpp
will use the extension and compile as C++)
Solution 2
To compile foo.cpp as a C file, you can create a new file named foo.c and put the following as its entire contents:
#include "foo.cpp"
Now compile foo.c instead of foo.cpp.
We've used this to go the other way (compile a .c file as C++) in order to start using C++ features in some files while preserving their decade-long CVS history. Also, we build using each platform's native compiler, not just GCC, so we didn't have to find the -x
equivalent command for a half-dozen compilers, and then make our build system apply that command only to certain files.
Comments
-
ralight almost 2 years
I have an externally provided .cpp file. It is a mixture of C compatible code and a bit of C++ as well. The C++ code is just a wrapper around the C to take advantage of C++ features.
It uses
#ifdef __cplusplus
macros to protect the C++ code, which is great. Unfortunately, if I try to compile using GCC, it treats it as C++ because of the file ending. I'm aware of the differences betweengcc
andg++
- I don't want to compile as C++.Is there any way I can force GCC to treat this file as a C file? I've tried using e.g.
--std=c99
, but this correctly produces the error that C99 isn't valid for C++.Renaming the file to .c works, but I'd like to avoid this if possible because it's externally provided and it'd be nice for it to remain as a pristine copy.
-
ralight over 13 yearsHow embarrassing, I must have paged right past it! Thanks very much, the same to everybody else who answered.
-
Mischo5500 over 8 yearsWorks as charm and quickest mentioned solution possible I think.