cc command in Linux with Examples

cc command is stands for C Compiler, usually an alias command to gcc or clang. As the name suggests, executing the cc command will usually call the gcc on Linux systems. It is used to compile the C language codes and create executables. The number of options available for the cc command is very high. The most important options are explained below with examples.

Syntax:

cc [options] files

Example: Below command will compile the source_file.c file, and create the default executable output file, a.out.

cc example.c

Important Options:

• cc command with -o option: This command will compile the source_file.c file, and create a executable output file with the specified name.

  cc example.c -o examp_out

  

• cc command with -Wall option: This command will compile the source_file.c file, and check for all errors and warnings in the program.

  cc example.c -Wall -o examp_out

  

• cc command with -w option: This command will compile the source_file.c file, but suppress all the warnings.

  cc example.c -w 

  

• cc command with -g option: This command will compile the source_file.c file, and create a debugging version of the executable output file. This output file can be used by the debugger, and is usually much larger in size than the normal output files.

  cc example.c -g -o examp_out_debug

  

• cc command with -c option: This command will compile the source_file.c file, and create an object file source_file.o, which can later be linked to create an executable output file.

  cc example.c -c 

  

• cc command with -Ldir option: This command, while compiling the source_file.c file, will also search the specified directory for header files.

  cc example.c -L /home/mukkesh/Desktop

  

• cc command with -ansi option: This command will compile the source_file.c file, and makes sure that the code follows strict ANSI standards. This will make sure that the code is portable to be compiled on any other system.

  cc -ansi example.c 

  

• cc command with –dump options: These commands specified below will print the version of the cc command, the default target machine and built-in specification strings.

  cc -dumpversion

  

  cc -dumpmachine

  

  cc -dumpspecs

  

• cc command with -v option: This command will compile the source_file.c file, and gives a verbose output.

  cc example.c -v