Suppose there are 2 c program named abc.c and xyz.c . Now we want to work with the 2 executables at a time. So we change the name of the ./a.out using
gcc -g abc.c -o abc
gcc -g xyz.c -o xyz
Even gcc -o abc abc.c works.
What does the -g and -o in the above commands specify or describe?
What is the significance of -g and -o in the command for renaming ./a.out file.
Thanks in advance.
-g means to leave debugging information in the output file, it's unrelated to renaming.
-o means to put the result in the specified file instead of the default filename (abc.o for object files, a.out for linked executable files).
From https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Option-Summary.html:
-g
Produce debugging information in the operating system's native format (stabs, COFF, XCOFF, or DWARF). GDB can work with this debugging information.
-o file
Place output in file file. This applies to whatever sort of output is being produced, whether it be an executable file, an object file, an assembler file or preprocessed C code.
-g starts becoming useful once you use debuggers such as gdb and lldb. When you attach to a running program and advancing one line at a time printing/altering the state as it changes.
if we specify -g option while compiling, debugging symbols will be available in the output file which will be useful when you try to debug using GDB.
If we won't specify -o option, the output will be placed in default a.out file. So if we run
gcc a.c - output will be in a.out
gcc b.c - output is a.out which is replacing old a.out file
If you want the output not to be a.out file, you can give -o option while compiling
gcc abc.c -o a
-o and -g options are not related.
Related
I have reinstalled mingw in my system and downloaded the gcc compiler.
I was shocked after compiling the first file which was "subject.c" but the name of the compiled file which gcc returned was "a.exe". It should be "subject.exe" but do not know why this happened.
Can anyone please explain the reason behind this ?
expected:
gcc subject.c
ls
subject.c subject.exe
tried:
gcc subject.c
ls
subject.c a.exe
-o can be used to give the name of the output file.
For example,
gcc -Wall -Wextra -pedantic subject.c -o subject.exe
(Do enable your compiler's warnings!)
gcc names its output files, in the absence of other instructions, a.out or a.exe depending on system environment because that is what it's supposed to do.
To override this default behavior, you can use the -o flag which tells gcc that the next argument is the desired name for the output file. For instance:
gcc -o subject.exe subject.c
There is no automatic functionality built into gcc to strip a source file of its file extension and add .exe to the end but this can be done manually with Makefiles or other similar scripts, for instance you can write a Makefile with the following contents:
%.exe: %.c
gcc -o $# $<
Then a command like make subject.exe would be translated to gcc -o subject.exe subject.c, which may be what you're looking for.
There is functionality built into gcc to strip source files of their extensions during different parts of the compilation process, which may have been what confused you. For instance a call like gcc -c subject.c can be expected to produce an object file called subject.o, likewise gcc -S subject.c can be expected to produce an assembly language file called subject.s, however this does not apply to executable files not only for historical reasons, but because programs can be compiled from multiple source files and there is not always a clear way to choose a name for the executable output.
I've used makefile to generate file.
gcc -c hello.c -o hello
and fixed the permission problem through:
chmod a+x ./hello
However, when I want to execute "hello" file.
./hello
the system told me that "cannot execute binary file"
Can someone help me? I am looking forward your reply badly.
The -c argument to gcc produces an object file which you later on must link in order to produce an executable. You can not execute the object file you produced.
Instead, to compile and link at the same time, suitable when you only have 1 .c file, do
gcc hello.c -o hello
Or if you want to break it down to separate compilation and linking steps, do
gcc -c hello.c -o hello.o
gcc hello.o -o hello
Check whether the GCC compiler is installed in your system correctly or not.
gcc -v
Compile your file:
gcc filename.cpp -o any-name
Running your program:
./any-name
As an alternative to compiling and linking at the same time you can use make:
make hello
Note: without the .c extension.
The terminal output should be:
cc hello.c -o hello
My C program uses string.h.. Initially I was not able to compile it. But then I used
$ gcc filename.c -E
Then it complied but I am not able to run it with both
./a.out
./filename
The -E option to gcc invokes only the preprocessor. If you want to compile you need to do this:
gcc -g -Wall -Wextra -o filename filename.c
The -o option specifies the name of the executable to create, the -W options enable the common compiler warnings, and -g includes debugging symbols so you can use tools such as gdb to step through the code line by line.
I was reading about ELF files on the net and am stuck in understanding a standard command to generate an ELF file.
Till now I have been running my code using > gcc test.c -o test.o .Thats it!!
One article says:
gcc -c test.c // will generate ELF file test.o
Now -o option is to tell the compiler to create an executable ( which is not ELF)
Another article says:
gcc -c test.c -o test.o // will generate ELF test.o -> here's where I am confused.
-o should always generate Executable.
The option -c tells GCC to generate an object file. This object file is only the compiled code from the source file test.c, not a complete program. To generate a complete program you need to link the object file. Or not use the -c option.
The -o option tells GCC what to name the output file, no matter what kind of output file it is.
So, to generate an executable file from a single source file, the simplest command is
$ gcc test.c
The above command will create an executable named a.out in the current directory. To name the output file something else you use the -o option:
$ gcc test.c -o myprogram
The above commands names the executable program myprogram.
To use the intermediate step with object files you use the -c option, and then use a separate step to link the program, like
$ gcc -c test.c
$ gcc test.o -o myprogram
The above two commands is the same as the single command gcc test.c -o myprogram.
I am a complete novice with Linux. I have Mint on a laptop and have recently been playing around with it.
I wrote a simple C program and saved the file.
Then in the command line I typed
gcc -c myfile
and out popped a file called a.out. I naively (after years of Windows usage) expected a nice .exe file to appear. I have no idea what to do with this a.out file.
Name it with -o and skip the -c:
gcc -Wall -o somefile myfile
You should name your sourcefiles with a .c extension though.
The typical way of compiling e.g. two source files into an executable:
#Compile (the -c) a file, this produces an object file (file1.o and file2.o)
gcc -Wall -c file1.c
gcc -Wall -c file2.c
#Link the object files, and specify the output name as `myapp` instead of the default `a.out`
gcc -o myapp file1.o file2.o
You can make this into a single step:
gcc -Wall -o myapp file1.c file2.c
Or, for your case with a single source file:
gcc -Wall -o myapp file.c
The -Wall part means "enable (almost) all warnings" - this is a habit you should pick up from the start, it'll save you a lot of headaches debugging weird problems later.
The a.out name is a leftover from older unixes where it was an executable format. Linkers still name files a.out by default, event though they tend to produce ELF and not a.out format executables now.
a.out is the executable file.
run it:
./a.out