This Linux guru will open the command line, type “cd /usr/bin. Some day, an IT admin will come up to you and question you about the Mac, and you proudly announce that it’s based on (BSD) UNIX. Or you’re a researcher, and you don’t use Xcode for scientific computing. Or you may be an administrator, and you want the C compiler to be available in a lab setting. On the other hand, you may be taking a C class and want to use a C compiler (gcc now points to llvm) from the command line.

Thats why it’s not in the Mac by default. There may be good reasons not to have a C compiler sitting around an average user’s Mac, ready to stir up trouble if accessed by malware.

But before I proceed, you should go back and read that article for reference on the C compilers, gcc, llvm, and all that jazz. In the article linked above, I explained that all you had to do was download and install Apple’s Xcode IDE, and everything would be as expected. Recently, professor Ulf von Barth of Lund University in Sweden alerted me to the fact that the mechanism has changed yet again. This article, “ OS X Lion for UNIX Geeks: Installing the C Compilers,” provided all the background. Here’s how to do it with the latest Xcode and Lion.īack in August, right after OS X 10.7, Lion, shipped, I wrote about how a new installation does not have the C compilers in the expected place, /usr/bin. Plus, Apple has once again changed the way you install those compilers in /usr/bin. Out of the box, OS X Lion doesn’t have the command line C compilers.

Best c compiler for mac os x non ide