gcc on Windows: generated "a.exe" file vanishes

Question

I'm using GCC version 4.7.1, but I've also tried this on GCC 4.8. Here is the code I'm trying to compile:

#include <stdio.h>

void print(int amount) {
    int i;
    for (i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
        printf("%d", i);
    }
}

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    print(5);
    return 0;
}

It looks like it should work, and when I compile with...

gcc main.c

It takes a while to compile, produces an a.exe file and the the a.exe file disappears. It isn't giving me any errors with my code.

Here's a gif of proof, as some people are misinterpreting this:

Answer 1

(Since ahoffer's deleted answer isn't quite correct, I'll post this, based on information in the comments.)

On Windows, gcc generates an executable named a.exe by default. (On UNIX-like systems, the default name, for historical reasons, is a.out.) Normally you'd specify a name using the -o option.

Apparently the generated a.exe file generates a false positive match in your antivirus software, so the file is automatically deleted shortly after it's created. I see you've already contacted the developers of Avast about this false positive.

Note that antivirus programs typically check the contents of a file, not its name, so generating the file with a name other than a.exe won't help. Making some changes to the program might change the contents of the executable enough to avoid the problem, though.

You might try compiling a simple "hello, world" program to see if the same thing happens.

Thanks to Chrono Kitsune for linking to this relevant Mingw-users discussion in a comment.

This is not relevant to your problem, but you should print a newline ('\n') at the end of your program's output. It probably doesn't matter much in your Windows environment, but in general a program's standard output should (almost) always have a newline character at the end of its last line.

Answer 2

Try to compile with gcc but without all standard libraries using a command like this:

gcc  -nostdlib -c  test.c -o test.o; gcc test.o -lgcc -o test.exe

One of the mingw libraries binary must generate a false positive, knowing which library would be useful.