a few beginner's woes...

hi guys... i'm straying off my usual turf - i'm usually to be found in the "webbier" forums, but round here, i accept that i know nothing.

having got that admission out of the way, i have a few questions -

i've been trying to get some of the example windows programs to work from www.cplusplus.com - i am interested in non-console apps (sorry, but i don't even know what they're supposed to be called). i've been downloading the little zip files, trying out the packaged exe file to see what it does, then deleting the packaged exe and trying to compile it myself. here is where the problems start (and the compiling ends!).

i am using the bloodshed Dev-C++ (4.9.8.0), and i cannot compile these examples - i get a slew of compiler errors/warnings and i don't get an exe file. i simply cannot believe that these examples are all screwed - i am obviously doing something wildly wrong - and i suspect that it is the kind of wrong that a competent C++ programmer feels they've always done right. can anyone shed any light on where i've got lost?

as a bit of background, i've been doing a lot of work with PHP/MySQL (hence me being off my usual stamping ground) and other web languages, but i am the first to admit that while web/db interactivity is very useful to the enterprise, it has major limitations. a client came to us recently with a problem which i'm sure would need intricate knowledge of printers/printer drivers/communication with printer drivers to solve - and of course i'm thinking this isn't the first time i'm going to be faced with problems i can't solve with my current tools, so i need to find out about some "big guns" languages.

as a kind of goal, i'd like to be aiming at writing an app that can communicate directly with MySQL, or maybe through a web service layer, but i can't even get off the ground.

so, if anyone can direct me to some *useful* sources, that'd be great. (if i read another tutorial that tells me that i++ means i=i+1 and that this is why C++ is called C++, i'll lose it!)

i am interested in non-console apps (sorry, but i don't even know what they're supposed to be called).

If they use windows, their called windows programs. Windows programs are organized much differently than console apps, so the compiler needs to know whether it is looking at a console app or a win32 app. You have to tell the compiler that it's a win32 app with the appropriate settings. I can't give you specifics for your compiler, but there should be some choices along the lines of console app, win32 app, etc. when you create your program.

hi do you know if the code your trying to compile is ansi/iso compliant and if so did you turn that on in dev's options? also take a look at the included librarieds that the program usus have you got those libraries included in your lib folder? if not bung them in there and see where that gets you mate.
i use dev quite alot and some of the codes ive tried before just refuse to compile usualy due to a ; not being added or something else trivialy stupid.

good luck on getting your stuff to compile.

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