Using MinGW in the CS Labs

1 Introduction

The JMU Computer Science Department's labs currently support C++ software development using the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) under Minimalist GNU for Windows (MinGW). This document describes how to use this development environment. It assumes that you already understand, in a general sense, how to use: an editor to create files, the G++ compiler to compile and link classes/applications, and the GNU make utility to manage projects.

You can access the MinGW tools in three ways:

Using the MSYS Shell
Using the MS-Windows Shell
Using jGRASP

each of which is discussed below.

2 Using the MSYS Shell

The MSYS shell is a Unix-like (limited Bourne) shell that can be used under MS-Windows. The MSYS shell can be accessed from the Start menu (under All Programs-MinGW-MSYS). To use the MSYS shell you need to be aware of the following:

In order to access the GCC you must modify the PATH as follows:
```
export PATH=/c/MinGW/bin:$PATH
```
You can make the N: drive your working directory with the command
```
cd /n/
```
or you can make the temp directory (on the C: drive) your working directory with the command
```
cd /c/temp
```
You can run an application in a detached process by appending an & to the end of the command. For example, to run Notepad in a detached process:
```
notepad Test.cpp &
```

3 Using the MS-Windows Shell

The MS-Windows shell (i.e., cmd.exe can be accessed from the Start menu by choosing run and entering cmd.exe in the dialog box. To use the MSYS shell you need to be aware of the following:

In order to access the GCC you must modify the PATH as follows:
```
set PATH=c:\MinGW\bin;c:\msys\1.0\bin;%PATH%
```

4 Using jGRASP

jGRASP can be accessed from the Start menu (under All Programs-jGRASP). To use jGRASP you need to be aware of the following:

In order to access the GCC you must modify the PATH by clicking on Settings, pulling down to PATH/CLASSPATH, selecting Workspace and adding c:\MinGW\bin and c:\msys\1.0\bin to the PATH.