Relocatable object files

In this section, we are going to talk about relocatable object files. As we explained in the previous chapter, these object files are the output of the assembly step in the C compilation pipeline. These files are considered to be temporary products of a C project, and they are the main ingredients to produce further and final products. For this reason, it would be useful to have a deeper look at them and see what we can find in a relocatable object file.

In a relocatable object file, we can find the following items regarding the compiled translation unit:

• The machine-level instructions produced for the functions found in the translation unit (code).
• The values of the initialized global variables declared in the translation unit (data).
• The symbol table containing all the defined and reference symbols found in the translation unit.

These are the key items that can be found in any relocatable object file. Of course, the way that they...