FairCom Low-Level API for C

Command Line Compile - Windows

This section explains how to compile and run the c-tree FairCom Low-Level tutorials from the Microsoft Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt window (also called the Native Tools Command Prompt window).

This section is oriented toward a command-line running on Microsoft Windows. The principles are similar for all other environments, such as Unix. For instructions regarding other build environments, see the other sections in this chapter.

• This tutorial requires that you have installed the Microsoft Windows SDK, available from Microsoft Windows SDK.
• FairCom currently supports the 2015, 2017, and 2019 versions of Microsoft Visual Studio.
• If the FairCom Database Engine server is not already running on your machine, start the server. See Setting Up the FairCom Server.

1. Open the Developer Command Prompt window, typically available from the Windows Start menu for your version of Microsoft Visual Studio. Choose the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the Developer Command Prompt which matches the bit-depth of the FairCom product you have installed, for example:

   Visual Studio 2017 > X64 Native Tools Command prompt for VS 2017

   Where 2017 is your version of Visual Studio and X64 is for a 64-bit version of the FairCom product (note “64” in the name of the default installation directory) or X86 for a 32-bit version of the FairCom product.

   Warning - If the Developer Command Prompt Start menu entry does not specify a bit depth, it will open the 32-bit version of the Developer Command Prompt.

   For more details, see the Microsoft Developer Command Prompt web page.

2. In the Developer Command Prompt window, move to the drivers\c.lowlevel\tutorials\cmdline directory and execute the BuildTutorials.bat file.

   This batch file will determine the version of the Microsoft C compiler you are using and will set the internal paths accordingly. It will then compile the tutorial included for this driver.

   After the tutorial has been built, the batch file will run it.

   If you see a c-tree error, you can look it up in the Error Code Reference. See the "Troubleshooting" section below for solutions to common problems.

The tutorial should look similar to the image below when running:

c-treeACE Version 11

Simple Low Level Function Example

Successfully created data files and indices

A)dd D)elete Q)uit:

See the Compile Using Microsoft Visual Studio IDE section for directions on how to use this tutorial.

Executing the Tutorial by Hand

You can run the tutorials by using the executable located in drivers\c.lowlevel\tutorials\cmdline.

Running in Debug Mode

To fully observe this API in action, you can single-step through the code with the Visual Studio integrated debugger. You can call this as follows:

devenv lowlevel.exe

Hint: A better way to single-step and debug is to open the Visual Studio solution that we provide. See Compile Using Microsoft Visual Studio IDE.

Troubleshooting

This section lists some of the errors that can occur when compiling and running these tutorials:

cl.exe not found! Please set environment for Visual C/C++ compiler.

The most common cause of this error is running the BuildTutorials.bat file from a DOS shell or normal Windows command shell rather than from the Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt window.

Could not initialize c-tree
Error 133 on file -1

The most common cause of this error is that the FairCom Database Engine is not running on your machine. Remember that the c-tree evaluation license times out after 3 hours, so the server might have exited and needs to be restarted. See the Setting Up the FairCom Server section for details.