how to compile a program

how do i go about compiling a simple hello world script in mandrake linux? this is something i have had no luck in finding on the main site, please help?

thank you

first make sure that you have a compiler installed for the language your using. if you are using C and you have gcc installed, you would do this:
gcc programname.c

that would output this a file called a.out
then you would simply run a.out. that is your program. if it is just a shell script then you dont compile it. it is an interpreted language and all you need to do is run it with the script with whatever shell language you wrote it in.

To download the binaries for gcc
http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc.html

and for the manuals on c programming

http://www.fsf.org/manual/glibc-2.0.6/libc.html