Compiling and Running C Programs

Compiling C program requires working with four kinds of files ---

• Regular Source Code Files - These files contain function definitions and have an extension '.C '.
• Header Files - These files contain declarations (also known as function prototypes) and various pre-processor statements. They are used to allow source code files to access externally defined functions. Header files have '.h ' extension.
• Object Files - These files are produced as the output of the compiler. They consist of various function definitions in binary form, but they are not executable by themselves.object files have '.obj ' extension.
• Binary Executable - These are produced as the output of a program called  'Linker'. The linker links together a number of object files to produce a binary file that can be directly executed. They have no suffix in UNIX but have '.exe ' on Windows.