C/C++ Program Compilation

In this chapter we begin by outlining the basic processes you need to go through in order
to compile your C (or C++) programs. We then proceed to formally describe the C
compilation model and also how C supports additional libraries.

Creating, Compiling and Running Your

Program
The stages of developing your C program are as follows. (See Appendix and exercises
for more info.)

Creating the program

Create a file containing the complete program, such as the above example. You can use
any ordinary editor with which you are familiar to create the file. One such editor is
textedit available on most UNIX systems.

The filename must by convention end ``.c'' (full stop, lower case c), e.g. myprog.c or
progtest.c. The contents must obey C syntax. For example, they might be as in the above
example, starting with the line /* Sample .... (or a blank line preceding it) and ending
with the line } /* end of program */ (or a blank line following it).

Compilation
There are many C compilers around. The cc being the default Sun compiler. The GNU C
compiler gcc is popular and available for many platforms. PC users may also be familiar
with the Borland bcc compiler.

There are also equivalent C++ compilers which are usually denoted by CC (note upper
case CC. For example Sun provides CC and GNU GCC. The GNU compiler is also
denoted by g++

Other (less common) C/C++ compilers exist. All the above compilers operate in
essentially the same manner and share many common command line options. Below and
in Appendix we list and give example uses many of the common compiler options.
However, the best source of each compiler is through the online manual pages of your
system: e.g. man cc.

For the sake of compactness in the basic discussions of compiler operation we will
simply refer to the cc compiler -- other compilers can simply be substituted in place of cc
unless otherwise stated.
To Compile your program simply invoke the command cc. The command must be
followed by the name of the (C) program you wish to compile. A number of compiler
options can be specified also. We will not concern ourselves with many of these options
yet, some useful and often essential options are introduced below -- See Appendix or
online manual help for further details.

Thus, the basic compilation command is:

cc program.c

where program.c is the name of the file.

If there are obvious errors in your program (such as mistypings, misspelling one of the
key words or omitting a semi-colon), the compiler will detect and report them.

There may, of course, still be logical errors that the compiler cannot detect. You may be
telling the computer to do the wrong operations.

When the compiler has successfully digested your program, the compiled version, or
executable, is left in a file called a.out or if the compiler option -o is used : the file listed
after the -o.

It is more convenient to use a -o and filename in the compilation as in

cc -o program program.c

which puts the compiled program into the file program (or any file you name following
the "-o" argument) instead of putting it in the file a.out .

Running the program

The next stage is to actually run your executable program. To run an executable in UNIX,
you simply type the name of the file containing it, in this case program (or a.out)

This executes your program, printing any results to the screen. At this stage there may be
run-time errors, such as division by zero, or it may become evident that the program has
produced incorrect output.

If so, you must return to edit your program source, and recompile it, and run it again.

The C Compilation Model

We will briefly highlight key features of the C Compilation model (Fig. 2.1) here.
Fig. 2.1 The C Compilation Model

The Preprocessor
We will study this part of the compilation process in greater detail later (Chapter 13.
However we need some basic information for some C programs.

The Preprocessor accepts source code as input and is responsible for

• removing comments
• interpreting special preprocessor directives denoted by #.

For example

• #include -- includes contents of a named file. Files usually called header files.
e.g
o #include <math.h> -- standard library maths file.
o #include <stdio.h> -- standard library I/O file
• #define -- defines a symbolic name or constant. Macro substitution.
o #define MAX_ARRAY_SIZE 100

C Compiler
The C compiler translates source to assembly code. The source code is received from the
preprocessor.
Assembler
The assembler creates object code. On a UNIX system you may see files with a .o suffix
(.OBJ on MSDOS) to indicate object code files.

Link Editor
If a source file references library functions or functions defined in other source files the
link editor combines these functions (with main()) to create an executable file. External
Variable references resolved here also. More on this later (Chapter 34).

Some Useful Compiler Options

Now that we have a basic understanding of the compilation model we can now introduce
some useful and sometimes essential common compiler options. Again see the online man
pages and Appendix for further information and additional options.

-c
Suppress the linking process and produce a .o file for each source file listed.
Several can be subsequently linked by the cc command, for example:

cc file1.o file2.o ...... -o executable

-llibrary
Link with object libraries. This option must follow the source file arguments. The
object libraries are archived and can be standard, third party or user created
libraries (We discuss this topic briefly below and also in detail later (Chapter 34).
Probably the most commonly used library is the math library ( math.h). You
must link in this library explicitly if you wish to use the maths functions (note do
note forget to #include <math.h> header file), for example:

cc calc.c -o calc -lm

Many other libraries are linked in this fashion (see below)

-Ldirectory
Add directory to the list of directories containing object-library routines. The
linker always looks for standard and other system libraries in /lib and /usr/lib.
If you want to link in libraries that you have created or installed yourself (unless
you have certain privileges and get the libraries installed in /usr/lib) you will
have to specify where you files are stored, for example:

cc prog.c -L/home/myname/mylibs mylib.a

-Ipathname
 Add pathname to the list of directories in which to search for #include files with
relative filenames (not beginning with slash /).

BY default, The preprocessor first searches for #include files in the directory
containing source file, then in directories named with -I options (if any), and
finally, in /usr/include. So to include header files stored in
/home/myname/myheaders you would do:

cc prog.c -I/home/myname/myheaders

Note: System library header files are stored in a special place (/usr/include)
and are not affected by the -I option. System header files and user header files
are included in a slightly different manner (see Chapters 13 and 34)

-g
invoke debugging option. This instructs the compiler to produce additional
symbol table information that is used by a variety of debugging utilities.
-D
define symbols either as identifiers (-Didentifer) or as values (-Dsymbol=value) in
a similar fashion as the #define preprocessor command. For more details on the
use of this argument see Chapter 13.

For further information on general compiler options and the GNU compiler refer to
Appendix .

Using Libraries
C is an extremely small language. Many of the functions of other languages are not
included in C. e.g. No built in I/O, string handling or maths functions.

What use is C then?

C provides functionality through a rich set function libraries.

As a result most C implementations include standard libraries of functions for many

facilities ( I/O etc.). For many practical purposes these may be regarded as being part of
C. But they may vary from machine to machine. (cf Borland C for a PC to UNIX C).

A programmer can also develop his or her own function libraries and also include special
purpose third party libraries (e.g. NAG, PHIGS).

All libraries (except standard I/O) need to be explicitly linked in with the -l and,
possibly, -L compiler options described above.

UNIX Library Functions

The UNIX system provides a large number of C functions as libraries. Some of these
implement frequently used operations, while others are very specialised in their
application.

Do Not Reinvent Wheels: It is wise for programmers to check whether a library function
is available to perform a task before writing their own version. This will reduce program
development time. The library functions have been tested, so they are more likely to be
correct than any function which the programmer might write. This will save time when
debugging the program.

Later chapters deal with all important standard library issues and other common system
libraries.

Finding Information about Library Functions

The UNIX manual has an entry for all available functions. Function documentation is
stored in section 3 of the manual, and there are many other useful system calls in section
2. If you already know the name of the function you want, you can read the page by
typing (to find about sqrt):

man 3 sqrt

If you don't know the name of the function, a full list is included in the introductory page
for section 3 of the manual. To read this, type

man 3 intro

There are approximately 700 functions described here. This number tends to increase
with each upgrade of the system.

On any manual page, the SYNOPSIS section will include information on the use of the
function. For example:

#include <time.h>

char *ctime(time_t *clock)

This means that you must have

#include <time.h>

in your file before you call ctime. And that function ctime takes a pointer to type time_t
as an argument, and returns a string (char *). time_t will probably be defined in the
same manual page.
The DESCRIPTION section will then give a short description of what the function does.
For example:

ctime() converts a long integer, pointed to by clock, to a

26-character string of the form produced by asctime().

Lint -- A C program verifier

You will soon discover (if you have not already) that the C compiler is pretty vague in
many aspects of checking program correctness, particularly in type checking. Careful use
of prototyping of functions can assist modern C compilers in this task. However, There is
still no guarantee that once you have successfully compiled your program that it will run
correctly.

The UNIX utility lint can assist in checking for a multitude of programming errors.
Check out the online manual pages (man lint) for complete details of lint. It is well
worth the effort as it can help save many hours debugging your C code.

To run lint simply enter the command:

lint myprog.c.

Lint is particularly good at checking type checking of variable and function assignments,
efficiency, unused variables and function identifiers, unreachable code and possibly
memory leaks. There are many useful options to help control lint (see man lint).

Exercises
Exercise 12171

Enter, compile and run the following program:

main()

{ int i;

printf("\t Number \t\t Square of Number\n\n");

for (i=0; i<=25;++i)

printf("\t %d \t\t\t %d \n",i,i*i);

Exercise 12172

The following program uses the math library. Enter compile and run it correctly.
#include <math.h>

main()

{ int i;

printf("\t Number \t\t Square Root of Number\n\n");

for (i=0; i<=360; ++i)

printf("\t %d \t\t\t %d \n",i, sqrt((double) i));

Exercise 12173

Look in /lib and /usr/lib and see what libraries are available.

• Use the man command to get details of library functions

• Explore the libraries to see what each contains by running the command ar t
libfile.

Exercise 12174

Look in /usr/include and see what header files are available.

• Use the more or cat commands to view these text files

• Explore the header files to see what each contains, note the include, define, type
definitions and function prototypes declared in them

Exercise 12175

Suppose you have a C program whose main function is in main.c and has other functions
in the files input.c and output.c:

• What command(s) would you use on your system to compile and link this
program?
• How would you modify the above commands to link a library called process1
stored in the standard system library directory?
• How would you modify the above commands to link a library called process2
stored in your home directory?
• Some header files need to be read and have been found to located in a header
subdirectory of your home directory and also in the current working directory.
How would you modify the compiler commands to account for this?

Exercise 12176

Suppose you have a C program composed of several separate files, and they include one
another as shown below:
 Figure 1.5: Sample Icon from Xterm Application
File Include Files
main.c stdio.h, process1.h
input.c stdio.h, list.h
output.c stdio.h
process1.c stdio.h, process1.h
process2.c stdio.h, list.h

• Which files have to recompiled after you make changes to process1.c?

• Which files have to recompiled after you make changes to process1.h?
• Which files have to recompiled after you make changes to list.h?