SPO600 Compiled C Lab

This is a draft only!
It is still under construction and content may change. Do not rely on this information.

Purpose of this Lab
In this lab, you will investigate the relationship between basic C source code and the output of the C compiler.

Ireland
If you do not have a Linux machine with you, you can use ireland.proximity.on.ca -- an account has been created for each SPO600 student. See your professor for login information.

Lab 2

1. Write a basic C program which prints a message on the screen, Hello World!-style -- something like this:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    printf("Hello World!\n");
}

2. Compile the program using the GCC compiler. Include these compiler options:

-g               # enable debugging information
-O0              # do not optimize (that's a capital letter and then the digit zero)
-fno-builtins    # do not use builtin function optimizations

3. The resulting binary is an ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) file, which contains multiple sections. These sections may contain object code, link tables, debugging symbols, program data (such as constants and the initial values of variables), metadata about the program and ELF sections, and comments.

Examine the binary produced by the previous step using the objdump program. These options may be useful -- see the manpage for objdump for other options:

-f          # display header information for the entire file
-s          # display per-section summary information
-d          # disassemble sections containing code
--source    # (implies -d) show source code, if available, along with disassembly

4. Try to gain a basic understanding of what the compiled code is doing.

5. Recompile the code with these changes and note the effect --

(1) Add -static. Note and explain the change in size, section headers, and the function call.

(2) Remove -fno-builtins. Note and explain the change in the function call.

(3) Remove -g. Note and explain the change in size, section headers, and disassembly output.

(4) Add additional arguments to the printf() function in the program. Note which register each argument is placed in. (Tip: Use sequential integer arguments after the first string argument. Go up to 10 arguments and note the pattern).

(5) Move the printf() call to a separate function, and call that function from main(). Explain the changes in the object code.

(6) Remove -O0 and add -O3 to the gcc options. Note and explain the difference in the compiled code.

6. Blog about your results. Important! -- explain what you're doing so that a reader coming across your blog post understands the context.

Make
Learn how to use make -- your life as a programmer will be much easier!

External Resources

• For a general overview of ELF, see the Wikipedia article on Executable and Linkable Format