On Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 07:42:31 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
On Wednesday, 11 February 2015 at 05:08:16 UTC, Venkat Akkineni
wrote:
I am coming from Java. What is the purpose of an object file &
why is it generated at compile time in addition to an
executable. I know C generates an object file too, but I don't
know what the use is.
Java uses a similar process: it has to generate .class files
before they can be packed into a .jar file.
I thought about making that analogy myself, but then decided that
it is likely to be more confusing than helpful. There are
similarities, but there are also numerous distinctions.
First to mind is that in Java .class files are executable (in
Java runtime), while object files are not.
A .jar file is just a organized collection of .class files (in a
compressed container). In that sense a .jar file is perhaps more
akin to a .lib file.
