Advanced UNIX Programming

Compiling C Programs

This is an area in which there is considerable variation among the different UNIX platforms. The FreeBSD 3.4 Release of UNIX uses the very capable GNU compiler:

$ gcc --version
2.7.2.3
$

This is linked to the same command as the more commonly recognized UNIX command name cc, as demonstrated in the next FreeBSD session:

$ type cc
cc is a tracked alias for /usr/bin/cc
$ ls -li /usr/bin/cc
7951 -r-xr-xr-x  2 root  wheel  49680 Dec 20 00:46 /usr/bin/cc
$ type gcc
gcc is a tracked alias for /usr/bin/gcc
$ ls -li /usr/bin/gcc
7951 -r-xr-xr-x  2 root  wheel  49680 Dec 20 00:46 /usr/bin/gcc
$

Since both /usr/bin/cc and /usr/bin/gcc link to the same i-node 7951 in the example, you know that these two files are linked to the same executable ...