Chapter 4. Compilation: The Basics

<feature><title>In This Chapter</title>

  • What Happens in a Build

  • The Task of Compilation

  • Linkage and Symbols

  • Dynamic Linkage

</feature>

Before continuing, let’s review how computer programs get made. If you’re coming to Xcode from long experience with GNU make or another development environment, this discussion will be very familiar to you.

Programmers use source code to specify what a program does; source code files contain a notation that, although technical and sometimes cryptic, is recognizably the product of a human, intended in part for humans to read and understand. Even the most precise human communication leaves to allusion and implication things that a computer has to have spelled out. When the Linrg tool ...

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