Gringotts

Hey in this post i would be giving the tutorial to install allegro
library for the open source project.

For people who want to use windows operating system for development :

Compiler suggested – gcc/g++ (GNU c/c++ compiler)
Text editor to be used – Dev C++

Installation :
1. Google “dev c++ download” and follow the links to source-forge to
download the dev-c++ compiler/text-editor.
2. After you have installed Dev-C++, goto tools and click on update
manager.
3. An update manager would show up, click on planetmirror and select
it to devpacks.org.
4. Now click on update, it would download updates.
5. Now click on groups and select Allegro.
6. A list of libraries would show up, select allegro 4.2.2 it is the
latest version.
7. Click on download package and it would install Allegro on Dev C++.

Running your first Allegro Program :
1. Open Dev C++, click on File>New>Project, Select second tab and
select allegro program.
2. A code would pop up, now click on execute and click on compile.
3. If no error shows up, congrats you just compiled your first program
on Allegro.
4. Click on execute and run, and you should see a black screen,
congrats for the first program.

For people who want to use Linux Operating system for development :

Compiler suggested – gcc/g++(GNU c/c++ compiler)
Text editor to be used – You can use any text editor here, recommended
(editra, emacs, vi)

Installation :
1. To install allegro you can either do it from source via tar ball :
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/alleg/allegro-4.2.2.tar.gz?download
2. Debian users can run :
|$sudo apt-get install build-essential
|$sudo apt-get install liballegro4.2-dev

This would install allegro library on your system.

Running your first Allegro Program :
1. Open your text editor and type any sample allegro code and save as
‘.c’.
2. Then open terminal and traverse to the path of the program.
|$gcc test.c -o test.out `allegro-config –libs`

now your program would compile.. or give errors accordingly.
3. to execute your program run test.out file.
|$./test.out

Congrats you just wrote your first Allegro program.

Learning Allegro :
Here are the links to the two tutorials that you must go through so as
to get some basic knowledge about allegro library.

http://www.loomsoft.net/resources/alltut/alltut_index.htm

http://www.cppgameprogramming.com/cgi/nav.cgi?page=intro

ANY PROBLEMS REGARDING INSTALLATION AND COMPILATION CAN BE DISCUSSED IN THE FORUM

FORUM

Well many of us have already done c++ programming and many would be doing it.

C/C++ doesn’t really matters, what matters is the compiler. People teach and learn basically on TurboC compiler.

Whats wrong with TurboC:

Well TurboC compiler is one of the earliest c/c++ compilers and still hasn’t grown much. It still works on 16-bit compiler(we have 64bit PCs these days). It follows old c/c++ standards c89 or c90, now these are old.. we have c99 as current standards for writing c++ codes.

Which Compiler to Use:

Well there are a lot of 32/64 bit compilers available to use, best ones being visual c/c++ and gcc/g++. Since we follow open source i’d recomend gcc/g++ to compile your programs. For people who don’t like command line interface of gcc/g++ can use DevC++ software to compile it.

These are available as 32/64 bit compilers (according to the type of pc you are using and operarting system) and follow latest c99 standards.

How does this difference effect me:

Well running a 16bit compiler on a 32/64 bit machine tells to the fact that it isn’t as capable of processing like the rest. Also noting that the previous standards weren’t perfect and had loop holes into it, so a need of better standards always comes up for improvement and c99 is just a good improvement.

Later on you’ll find no c/c++ code is developed on TurboC.

Is The Code for c99 different:

Well somewhat yes and no, I mean c/c++ won’t change, except some ways to refer things do change.

Now i’ll explain the difference in codes :

1. The is no iostream.h header file to include instead you include iostream file.

#include<iostream>

2. You cannot refer cout and cin statements as it is, you need to point it to std for standard I/O.

cout<<"Hello"; becomes         std::cout<<"hello";

3. If you don’t want to write std everytime you can use the namespace concept to point it to standard by default.

eg code :

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;

int main()

{

cout<<"hello";

return 0;

}

4. There is no conio.h -> conio.h is a dos based header file and cannot be used except TurboC.

you can use alternatives to the major functions you used there.

getch()   ->    getchar()

clrscr()    ->    system(“cls”);      //windows

clrscr()     ->   system(“clear”);    //linux

5. The is no void main… your main function should always return a value, so we go with int main.

Keeping in mind only these few things you’d be programming better than the rest and one step above them.