Thread: Compilation steps in detail?

Originally Posted by hardi

What is the extension of the preprocessed file? If I type g++ -E main.cpp, then it writes the preprocessed file into the output, but I see no output when the -E is done in the background (when I only use g++ main.cpp), thus, it should write it to a file.

Actually, a preprocessed file is not necessarily produced by the compiler. It could be written to a file, but there is no technical requirement to do so. In practice, the communication between phases of the compiler occurs via temporary files (eg files that are placed in a directory like /tmp) with a pseudorandomly generated name. There is also a command line option -pipe which causes communication between compilation phases to occur via pipes rather than file temporary files; this is not usually used as it requires more machine resources (and also relies on having an assembler program that can receive data via pipes: not all assembler programs can do that).

Originally Posted by hardi

then it compiles the preprocessed file into assembler code(this is human readable, right?).
getting only the assembler code should be g++ -S main.cpp and it will produce main.s. Correct?

Technically, an assembler code is human readable. Whether the human will want to read it is another matter. Without the -S option, there will not necessarily be a main.S file produced: the communication between compiler and assembler will happen via temporary files.

Originally Posted by hardi

Then, the file is assembled - that means, the assembler code from the main.s file will be translated into pure machine code, that is not human-readable anymore and the result is written into main.o

This step depends on the machine and the implementation. For example, some gnu compilers targeting MS-DOS (eg djgpp) target a 32 bit environment that runs on top of the MS-DOS.

Originally Posted by hardi

linker takes main.o and starts looking for the #includes and stuff(#include is somehow marked in the .o file), to link all the necessary files toghether.

This is incorrect. Preprocessor actions (#include, macro expansion, etc) occur in the preprocessor, which occurs (logically) before compilation. The linker accepts object files and libraries, and produces an executable. The linker does not see preprocessed codes.

Originally Posted by grumpy

This is incorrect. Preprocessor actions (#include, macro expansion, etc) occur in the preprocessor, which occurs (logically) before compilation. The linker accepts object files and libraries, and produces an executable. The linker does not see preprocessed codes.

.o files are really small - comparing to the resulting executable. There is no way that the iostream library is in the .o file(with all its subincluded files). So, where does the iostream go? When is it made into machine code?

Originally Posted by Salem

Guess you still didn't do this.

I did it when you told me to, but at that time I didn't know what to look for, thus it was useless. But ty for pointing that out now