C programming in Visual Studio

Question

Can I use Visual Studio to learn C programming? In the new project menu I can choose between Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, Visual F# and others but I don't see "C" or "Visual C".

Answer 1

You can use Visual Studio for C, but if you are serious about learning the newest C available, I recommend using something like Code::Blocks with MinGW-TDM version, which you can get a 32 bit version of. I use version 5.1 which supports the newest C and C++. Another benefit is that it is a better platform for creating software that can be easily ported to other platforms. If you were, for example, to code in C, using the SDL library, you could create software that could be recompiled with little to no changes to the code, on Linux, Apple and many mobile devices. The way Microsoft has been going these days, I think this is definitely the better route to take.

Answer 2

Short answer: Yes, you need to rename .cpp files to c, so you can write C: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb384838.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

From the link above:

By default, the Visual C++ compiler treats all files that end in .c as C source code, and all files that end in .cpp as C++ source code. To force the compiler to treat all files as C regardless of file name extension, use the /Tc compiler option.

That being said, I do not recommend learning C language in Visual Studio, why VS? It does have lots of features you are not going to use while learning C

Answer 3

Yes, you very well can learn C using Visual Studio.

Visual Studio comes with its own C compiler, which is actually the C++ compiler. Just use the .c file extension to save your source code.

You don't have to be using the IDE to compile C. You can write the source in Notepad, and compile it in command line using Developer Command Prompt which comes with Visual Studio.

Open the Developer Command Prompt, enter the directory you are working in, use the cl command to compile your C code.

For example, cl helloworld.c compiles a file named helloworld.c.

Refer this for more information: Walkthrough: Compiling a C Program on the Command Line

Hope this helps

Answer 4

Download visual studio c++ express version 2006,2010 etc. then goto create new project and create c++ project select cmd project check empty rename cc with c extension file name

Answer 5

Yes, you can:

You can create a C-language project by using C++ project templates. In the generated project, locate files that have a .cpp file name extension and change it to .c. Then, on the Project Properties page for the project (not for the solution), expand Configuration Properties, C/C++ and select Advanced. Change the Compile As setting to Compile as C Code (/TC).

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/ide/visual-cpp-project-types?view=vs-2017