Program Execution Basics

Topic: Program Execution Basics

What is a computer program?

>> A computer program is a collection of instructions that performs a specific task
when executed by a computer. A computer requires programs to function. A
computer program is usually written by a computer programmer in a
programming language. From the program in its human-readable form of
source code, a compiler can derive machine code—a form consisting of instructions
that the computer can directly execute. Alternatively, a computer program may be
executed with the aid of an interpreter.
Compiler:
>> A compiler is a special program that processes statements written in a particular
programming language and turns them into machine language or "code" that a
computer's processor uses. Typically, a programmer writes language statements in a
language such as Pascal or C one line at a time using an editor. The file that is created
contains what are called the source statements or source code.
Interpreter:
>> An interpreter is a computer program that is used to directly execute program
instructions written using one of the many high-level programming languages. The
interpreter transforms the high-level program into an intermediate language that it
then executes, or it could parse the high-level source code and then performs the
commands directly, which is done line by line or statement by statement.
Assembler: Converts intermediate assembly code into a machine code.

The difference between an interpreter and a compiler is given below:

Interpreter Compiler
1 Translates program one statement at a Scans the entire program and
time. translates it as a whole into machine
code.
2 It takes less amount of time to analyze It takes large amount of time to
the source code but the overall analyze the source code but the overall
execution time is slower. execution time is comparatively faster.
3 No intermediate object code is Generates intermediate object code
generated, hence are memory which further requires linking, hence
efficient. requires more memory.
4 Continues translating the program It generates the error message only
until the first error is met, in which after scanning the whole program.
case it stops. Hence debugging is easy. Hence debugging is comparatively
hard.
5 Programming language like Python, Programming language like C, C++
Ruby use interpreters. use compilers.
The different kinds of files in C programming
Compiling C programs requires you to work with four kinds of files:

a) Regular source code files: These files contain function definitions, and
have names which end in ".c" by convention.
b) Header files: These files contain function declarations (also known as
function prototypes) and various preprocessor statements (see below). They
are used to allow source code files to access externally-defined functions.
Header files end in ".h" by convention.
c) Object files: These files are produced as the output of the compiler. They
consist of function definitions in binary form, but they are not executable by
themselves. Object files end in ".o" by convention, although on some operating
systems (e.g. Windows, MS-DOS), they often end in ".obj".
d) Binary executable: These are produced as the output of a program called a
"linker". The linker links together a number of object files to produce a binary
file which can be directly executed. Binary executables have no special suffix
on Unix operating systems, although they generally end in ".exe" on Windows.
 The Four Stages of Compiling a C Program

Knowing how compilation works can be very helpful both when writing code and
debugging. Compiling a C program is a multi-stage process. At an overview level, the
process can be split into four separate stages:
a) Preprocessing
b) Compilation
c) Assembly
d) Linking

Traditional C compilers orchestrate this process by invoking (calling) other programs

to handle each stage.

A) Preprocessing
The first stage of compilation is called preprocessing. In this stage, lines starting with
a “#” character are interpreted by the preprocessor as preprocessor commands.
These commands form a simple macro language with its own syntax and semantics.
This language is used to reduce repetition in source code by providing functionality
to inline files, define macros and to conditionally omit code.
To print the result of the preprocessing stage, pass the -E option to cc:

cc -E hello_world.c
B) Compilation
The second stage of compilation is confusingly enough called compilation. In this
stage, the preprocessed code is translated to assembly instructions specific to the
target processor architecture. These form an intermediate human readable language.
The existence of this step allows for C code to contain inline assembly instructions
and for different assemblers to be used.

Some compilers also supports the use of an integrated assembler, in which the
compilation stage generates machine code directly, avoiding the overhead of
generating the intermediate assembly instructions and invoking the assembler.
To save the result of the compilation stage, pass the -S option to cc:
cc -S hello_world.c

C) Assembly:
During the assembly stage, an assembler is used to translate the assembly
instructions to machine code, or object code. The output consists of actual
instructions to be run by the target processor.

To save the result of the assembly stage, pass the -c option to cc:

cc -c hello_world.c

Running the above command will create a file named hello_world.o, containing the
object code of the program. The contents of this file is in a binary format and can be
inspected using hexdump or od by running either one of the following commands:

hexdump hello_world.o

od -c hello_world.o

D) Linking
The object code generated in the assembly stage is composed of machine instructions
that the processor understands but some pieces of the program are out of order or
missing. To produce an executable program, the existing pieces have to be
rearranged and the missing ones filled in. This process is called linking.

The linker will arrange the pieces of object code so that functions in some pieces can
successfully call functions in other pieces. It will also add pieces containing the
instructions for library functions used by the program. In the case of the “Hello,
World!” program, the linker will add the object code for the puts function.

The result of this stage is the final executable program. When run without options, cc
will name this file a.out. To name the file something else, pass the -o option to cc:

cc -o hello_world hello_world.c