Write a script that compiles a C file and creates an executable named myApp
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The question above doesn't expect you to write a C program but rather a bash script that will be used for compiling various C programs.
This means you will need to know how to write bash scripts to be able to answer this question. If you don't know what a bash script is or how to write one, then check out my previous post on it.
How to write a script that performs certain commands in Linux
There are multiple ways to compile a C program into an executable file. One of the most common ways is:
- using the gcc compiler
How to compile a C program using the gcc compiler
If you are using a Linux distro like ubuntu then you are likely to have the gcc compiler installed on it. Otherwise you can run the command below to install it.
sudo apt-get install build-essential
Once installed, you now have access to the gcc command.
To compile a C program with the gcc command, you need to pass the file containing your source code as an attribute to the command.
Let's assume that we have a file called app.c containing the source code of our C program, the gcc command will be:
gcc app.c
When the above command is run, all the four stages of the C program compilation will be completed and a final output file will be returned.
NB: The 4 stages of the compilation process are:
- Preprocessing
- Actual Compilation
- Assembly
- Linking
Hence, the gcc command above takes your source code through all these 4 stages and by default gives you an executable file with the name a.out.
What if you want the executable file to have a specific name?
You can add the option-o to the gcc command and give the name that you want for the execution file as an attribute.
gcc app.c -o myApp
The command above means that your source code app.c should be compiled into an executable file called myApp.