Learn more about compiling, linking and...

I would like to learn more about prosess of compiling and linking (under the hood). Build proces. Libs and dlls. Stuff like that. Any articles or books to recomend?

Every compiler is different. You need to read the docs for the specific compiler you want to use. You mention "dlls", so I gather from that that you mean the MS-Windows operating system, because *nix does not use dlls. google for "how to create a dll" and you will find some information. There are lots of books at your local bookstore about how to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 and probably also Borland products.

As for in-depth coverage -- there isn't really all that much to it. Probably the most interesting one is the preprocessor, because that's where all macros are expanced.

preprocessor -- expands all include files and macros. This produces intermediate file, with VC++ 6.0 they have a *.i file name. You can request the compiler stop after this stage by using the /P compiler switch so that you can read the *.i files -- they are just text files very similar to the original *.c and *.cpp files.

compiler -- takes the *.i files and compiles them down to *.obj files.

linker -- combines all *.obj and *.lib files into the *.exe program.

Quote:

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*.obj

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Or *.o, for some compilers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dwks

Or *.o, for some compilers.

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also, *.a instead of *.lib on those same *nix-compatible compilers

and its .so (shared object) on most *nix that support it instead of dll (Dynamicly linked library)

Thanks people. Here is the thing. I'm trying to learn more then theory, some practical things. And now I see a lot of stuff you can't realy find in those "learn ... in 21 days" books.

things like static and dynamic linking?
i have some basic idea about lib (so) files but i'm not realy understanding what is happening under?
dll export stuff like: extern "C" __declspec(dllexport)?

Just need links to articles, keywords or book names... thanks again.