compilers 🗃️

compilers are programs that convert program source code to executable form

“executable” = machine code / bytecode

the Gnu C compiler: gcc — three steps in the compiling process

gcc -o file1.c file2.c

  1. applies source-to-source transformation (pre-processor)
  2. compiles source code to produce object files
  3. links object files and libraries to produce executables

note: dcc and 3c are ‘wrappers’ around gcc


makefiles ⏩

for large projects, compilation gets complex:

makefiles are usually named Makefile and placed in same directory as everything else