Now we are going to examine more details about the process that happen before and after the linking stage. In doing so, it resolves references to external symbols, assigns final addresses to procedures/functions and variables, and revises code and data to reflect new addresses (a process called relocation).īear in mind that if you use the IDE type compilers, these processes quite transparent. It takes one or more object files or libraries as input and combines them to produce a single (usually executable) file. Linking is the final stage of compilation. The assembler output is stored in an object file. It takes the assembly source code and produces an assembly listing with offsets. It takes the output of the preprocessor, and the source code, and generates assembler source code.Īssembly is the third stage of compilation. It processes include-files, conditional compilation instructions and macros.Ĭompilation is the second pass. Preprocessing is the first pass of any C compilation. Below are the stages that happen in order regardless of the operating system/compiler and graphically illustrated in Figure w.1. Normally the C’s program building process involves four stages and utilizes different ‘tools’ such as a preprocessor, compiler, assembler, and linker.Īt the end there should be a single executable file. Have a nice day!Īble to understand and appreciate the processes involved in preprocessing, compiling, linking, loading and running C/C++ programs. The commands and examples of the gcc, gdb, g++, gas and friends are discussed in Linux gnu gcc, g++, gdb and gas 1 and Linux gnu gcc, g++, gdb and gas 2. the processes discussed here quite transparent.

When you use the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) compilers such as Microsoft Visual C++, Borland C++ Builder etc. It is based on the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). It tries to investigate how the C/C++ source codes preprocessed, compiled, linked and loaded as a running program. However, it is an excerpt from more complete, Tenouk's buffer overflow Tutorial. This Module presents quite a detail story of a process (running program). COMPILER, ASSEMBLER, LINKER AND LOADER: A BRIEF STORY

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