如何使用GCC生成ELF文件？

Question

I am writing C and C++ code on Linux OS and I am using GCC. After finishing my code, I would like to generate an ELF file. I just can generate "a.out" file and I don't need it. How can I get ELF file ? ELF file occurs as a result of what ? or Is it possible to generate this file with this program ?

Answer 1

The compiler (ie gcc or g++ ) will invoke the linker ( ld ) which produces an ELF executable.

In practice, you will use a builder program (like make ) to drive gcc commands. See this answer .

The default output file for gcc is still named a.out (for historical reasons) but is an ELF file. And you really want to ask gcc to output an executable with a more fancy name.

Simple example, you code a single-file hello-world.c program. You can compile it with eg

 gcc -Wall -g hello-world.c -o hello-world-bin

^{(order of arguments to gcc matters a lot!)}

and the produced hello-world-bin is an ELF executable. Check with

 file hello-world-bin

then run it with

 ./hello-world-bin your arguments to it

Later, learn how to use the gdb debugger on it.

See also this and that answers.