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Hello, I am a C newbie. I’m trying to recompile some very old C 16 bit programs that are called by a VFP program. The problem is that I need this VFP program to run on a 64 bit machine/ compile at least as 32 bit. My objective is to just get this compiled. I don’t have the time (right now) to dive into lots of work understanding the intricacies of c and c++.So hopefully there is a simple solution that doesn’t involve a lot of rewriting.
I downloaded Visual c++ 2008 express edition, which comes with a command line compiler (cl.exe) I was hoping I could just call
cl.exe old_c_prog.c and it would work. A few of the programs do. However several of the programs have references to functions like
clrscr(), window() textcolor(), textbackground,highvideo(), textattr, gotoxy() From the research I did it looks like these functions should be found in conio.h, which I have a #include for. However, I am hazy on this, but it looks as the implementation of conio.h that has these functions is for turbo C?Is there some other .H file that I can include which supports these old console functions? (and will work with 64 bit machine)
Or maybe there is some other compiler that will work?
The functions clrscr(), ect. are exclusive to the Borland Turbo Compiler. I think the easiest way to compile the code would be to download the free Borland Command Line Tools Package ( I think you can find it here: http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/20633 ) or just google free Borland Command Line Tools Package download. You could also write your own replacement functions and add them to the one of the VC++ library ( could code these using Windows API calls for 32-bit Windows applications ).
It turns out that I figured this out shortly after I posted – and that’s exactly what I did, ie. download the Borland compiler. Much better results now, however, now I have a new set of issues and questions.
When I compiled with the Borland compiler it gave me a ton of warnings stating that function prototypes were missing. It would error out after a certain number of these warnings. Then I added a command line flag to tell it to ignore up to 255 warnings – this worked, and, I guess from that standpoint my task is done. However, I didn’t like the idea of these warnings. I have others to compile and I am concerned that I will reach the upper limit of the # of warnings to ignore. So I researched it and found that there was a ‘makeheaders.c’ program which would create the function prototypes for me. I tried this but for the life of me couldn’t get this to work – created the headers and tried to include the .h files for them – but it wasn’t working. Can provide more details on this if needed.
Then I decided that I would try to copy conio.h from borland over to the visual studio c++ environment as conio2.h
The more I got into this the messier it got. Then I read a post somewhere else stating that ‘copying borland headers over to visual studio will not work’. So I am inclined to give up this idea you think there is a simple way to do this.So, now I am thinking that I should stick with the Borland compiler and live with the warnings for now. But ideally I’d like to figure out how to get the function prototypes to work – it looks straightforward. I don’t know what could be wrong.
Please advise on which path you think would be the best to take.
Thanks!
@dman wrote:
The functions clrscr(), ect. are exclusive to the Borland Turbo Compiler. I think the easiest way to compile the code would be to download the free Borland Command Line Tools Package ( I think you can find it here: http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/20633 ) or just google free Borland Command Line Tools Package download. You could also write your own replacement functions and add them to the one of the VC++ library ( could code these using Windows API calls for 32-bit Windows applications ).
I haven’t used this compiler for a looong time , but as I remember you have to do a few small things to configure it or it will not work properly. Heres a link that shows how to configure it http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/21205 , you can also google set up Borland command line tools .
Hello again dman. In the meantime I was able to get the function prototypes to work. I had already done the setup steps and I think the compiler is setup fine. The problem, I think, was that I was trying to use makeheaders without really understanding what it was doing. I ended up making the function prototypes manually. Now I have everything compiled without warning or errors.
However, now I have a new problem. One of my exe’s bombs out at runtime. I can’t see where this command line compiler has a debugging / runtime environment. I vaguely remember a debugging environment for Turbo C, but the last time I used it was in 1992! How can I step through this code in a debug environment?
Thanks.
@dman wrote:
I haven’t used this compiler for a looong time , but as I remember you have to do a few small things to configure it or it will not work properly. Heres a link that shows how to configure it http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/21205 , you can also google set up Borland command line tools .
Theres a seperate debugging utility called “turbo debugger” or something. Its a small DOS box utility that debugs object files made with Turbo C++ , as I remember. Heres a link to some info on this http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/bcpp.html
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