Thread: Makefiles
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Old 21st October 2008
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TerryP TerryP is offline
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Not quite accurate mdh.

We usually call gcc through a front end (e.g. g++) which invokes the necessary programs to complete the indicated task. To compile, the front end has to parse the source files for the assembler.

C, C++, and some dialects of Fortran get fed through a text pre processor first by default, which does not understand code. cpp the "C Pre Processor" knows nothing of C, it's as simple as sed s/search/replace/g for all most people need to care. The pre processed code is then parsed by the front end into the proper format and massaged into Register Transfer Language (RTL) by the back end. Which is then given to the the gnu assembler (as) for your platform, in order to create something that the GNU linker (ld) can understand. And eventually finding it's way into something that will be executed by your operating system.



But most likely ocicats choice of words, were chosen to Keep It Simple for the Student. How much that's actually possible in C /or C++, I have no idea... lol.
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Last edited by TerryP; 21st October 2008 at 09:33 PM.
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