Stages

  • preprocessing - text substitution, stripping comments and file inclusion
g++ -E main.cpp -o main.i
  • compilation - compilation of the processed source code into assembly language
g++ -S main.i -o main.s
# or
g++ -S main.cpp -o main.s
  • assembler - conversion of assembly code into machine code
as main.s -o main.o
# or
g++ -c main.cpp -o main.o
  • linker - produce a single executable program file, it combines our program with startup code like the following ones
    • standard code at the beginning of the program to set up the running environment to pass command-line parameters and environmental variables
    • standard code at the end of the program to pass back a return code
g++ main.cpp -o main

Flags

  • -E run the preprocessing stage
  • -S run the preprocessing and compilation stages
  • -c run the preprocessing, compilation and assemble stages
  • -o file write output to file
  • -llibrary, -l library search the library named library when linking
  • -Idir add dir to the list of directories to be searched for header files
  • -Ldir add dir to the list of directories to be searched for -l
  • -Wall enable all the warnings about some constructions considered questionable by some users
  • -O enable optimization

References